


The truth about Ones

by injerannie94



Series: And the Worm is dead.... [2]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Affairs, Angst, Arranged Marriages, Denial, F/M, Fate, Female soldiers, Myths about soulmates, additional tags probably to be added, battles, dancing around eachother, falling in love for the first time, falling in love with someone already engaged, family fic, interludes by Fate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-18
Updated: 2014-12-26
Packaged: 2018-02-17 21:25:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 31,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2323688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/injerannie94/pseuds/injerannie94
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel to 'The first years'</p><p>After the tragedy of losing his wife Safiyah, Kili's life as a single dad seems to have resettled. His life now centres unwaveringly around his daughter, although his rising role as part of Erebor's King's Guard means he travels a lot. </p><p>Life seems finally to be straightforward, at least, until Kili's 90th birthday, when he meets a strange dwarrowdam who seems to have taken up permanent residence in his life...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In which Kili meets an infuriating dam

**Fate was starting to get frustrated.**

**She didn't usually intervene directly in people’s lives, merely guided them towards their destiny. Sometimes people resisted her, fought her kicking and screaming, but usually Fate ultimately won over; after all, she knew what was best for them.**

**That said, of course, destiny was not inevitable - and many people did not meet the destiny she had predetermined for them. Sometimes they came out better, and for that she was glad. Sometimes they were not so lucky, and she grieved for what she witnessed. After all, fate was not vindictive and contrary to popular notions, she had very little power to really _control_ people. **

**Fate watched over many people, and loved them all tenderly and dearly, though two in particular were occupying her mind. She’d had a plan, a beautiful plan, one of the best she had constructed – though it was proving most difficult to implement.**

**The first stage in her plan for them had been foiled by those abhorrent _men_ , whirling like a destructive dervish around the Blue Mountains, carrying Her far away from the place she had intended they would meet, grow up together. She was saddened by the sight of so many broken families, all by the cause of those damnable men – oh, how they made her blood boil! **

**She wondered then, when the little dam escaped, whether she should intervene, and alas that she did not. Nevertheless, given the future that usually befell dwarrowdams sold or captured into slavery, Fate felt that Her new life in the Iron Hills was an improvement. At least it had better prospects.**

**Fate watched with glee, years later, when Erebor was retaken and her charges were again within spitting distance of each other, as they hadn’t been since they were dwarflings. Alas, she watched with dismay how they circled one another, never noticing, ever oblivious, never aware...**

**If only She opened her eyes little more she may have noticed the dark-haired dwarf who kept appearing in her life. She had chased them even out of her own garden once! And given His status, his high-profile family, Fate could have smacked her head against a wall with how little she seemed to know about him. Yes, fate was definitely getting frustrated.**

**But then Fate watched as He married another, and wondered if this was another of her plans thwarted; perhaps the coupling she had drawn out in the beginning was simply not meant to be; a shame, but people had been granted free will for this very purpose. Destiny after all, was far from inevitable, she reminded herself.**

**She grieved with Him after seeing what befell his ill-lucked marriage. Fate always remembered Safiyah, for whom she could have done nothing.**

**But now, new opportunities! It was surely only a matter of time before they came across one another - so many similarities, so many common interests, they were as alike as a reflection in a mirror, _surely_ it was only a matter of time… but time came, time went. It was almost as if they were deliberately resisting her!**

**That was when Fate truly intervened - now was the time for desperate measures.**

Kíli had been away four days now. He’d left the city on patrol, though there was hardly any point, given the safety of the mountains, and in fact the rest of the scouting team suggested he should get home early, noticing his restlessness. He decided instead to use his time to go hunting. He hadn’t been on a long hunt for a while now, and while meat was plentiful in Erebor, game was still enjoyed.

 

Kíli had a fruitful two days, in which he had caught numerous rabbits, several birds and had almost shot a deer (before remembering that he was on foot and trying to carry an entire dead venison single-handed was really not worth the effort). It was late autumn, so while he would normally have camped somewhere in the open, he decided it would be wiser to spend the night beneath a rock overhang close to a stream. Good job too, because shortly after dark, it had started to rain, which soon turned to sleet, battering loudly at the ground outside his shelter.

 

He had at least waited till midnight, till it was his actual birthday, before pulling out the flask of whiskey he had brought with him and proceeding to get very drunk. He amused himself by inventing a drinking game, taking a swig every time he had to put another branch on the small fire, over which he was roasting a capon, take a swig every time the wind changed direction, take a swig, sinking deeper and deeper into his cups as his game grew more and more elaborate and ridiculous. He began to sing a song to himself, one he and Fíli regularly performed as a duet down in the bar Bombur and his wife Luvan owned. It was a song Bilbo had taught them, and he chorused raucously:

 

_Sing hey! for the bath at close of day_

_That washes the weary mud away!_

_A loon is he that will not sing:_

_O! Water Hot is a noble thing!_

 

The sleet began to pelt harder, so Kíli raised his voice, competing with Aule to make the louder noise:

 

_O! Sweet is the sound of falling rain,_

_And the brook that leaps from hill to plain;_

_But better than rain or rippling streams_

_Is Water Hot that smokes and steams!_

 

He brandished his flask with a flourish before his eyes fell upon a moving shadow in the darkness beyond his cave. A figure stumbled into the firelight, wrapped in a thick brown travelling cloak. Kíli could hear its breath heaving as if it had come a long way. It pulled back its hood slightly, revealing its face – it was a dwarrowdam. Kíli’s fingers relaxed slightly around the hilt of his knife, which he had had the sensibility to draw at the sound of an approaching creature, but he did not lower his blade.

 

They stared at eachother for a moment.

 

“Who are you?” they demanded at the same time. Neither replied, just glared.

 

The dwarrowdam took in him; she seemingly decided he was not a threat as she thrust her hunting knife back into its sheath and untied her cloak. She laid it out carefully in front of the fire to dry and then sat down across the fire from him, shivering slightly in her light travelling clothes. She wore a tunic and breeches and sturdy boots not unlike Kíli’s own. Her clothes were clearly meant for a dwarf and not a dwarrowdam, as they hung unflatteringly on her slender body, ignoring the nuances of her shape underneath.

 

“Make yourself at home,” Kíli muttered.

 

“I settled here first three days ago,” the dwarrowdam snapped.

 

Kíli was taken aback by her aggression. “Are you from the Lonely Mountain?” he asked coolly, though the tone of his voice was somewhat spoiled by his slurring words.

 

“You’re drunk,” the dwarrowdam stated. It wasn’t a question.

 

“Indeed I am,” Kíli affirmed happily. “Well, it _is_ my birthday.”

 

“Many happy returns,” the dwarrowdam said dryly. She pulled off her hood fully and crouched down warily in front of the fire, warming her hands. She was still watching him gingerly out of the corner of her eyes.

 

“Well?” Kíli prompted. “You still didn’t answer my question.”

 

“I am,” she provided shortly.

 

There was something about the dwarrowdam’s presence that made Kíli agitated. He had not planned to see anyone else for at least another twelve hours, and he couldn’t pretend he wasn’t annoyed at her rude intrusion to his well-deserved solitude. However, he tried his best to remember his princely manners and appear mellow.

 

“What are you doing so far from the Mountain?” he asked, hoping his voice conveyed the pleasant interest he was certainly not feeling.

 

“I was hunting.”

 

“So was I,” Kíli replied.

 

“What’s your name?” Kíli asked, after the dwarrowdam made no efforts to continue the conversation.

 

“Not your concern,” the dwarrowdam snapped.

 

“Well fine, if you want to be rude, I was just making conversation seeing as we’re stuck here until the rain stops!” Kíli retorted, pleasant dignitaries forgotten.

 

The dwarrowdam seemed to regret her short-temperedness almost as soon as she had let the sharp words leave her mouth. She watched Kíli, a little remorse in her eyes, as she watched him disassemble the spit he had created over the fire and begin cutting meat from the capon away from the bones. Without warning, her stomach rumbled. Kíli glanced at her and sighed.

 

“Alright, no names,” he said, passing her his knife with a piece of steaming fowl stuck on the end. “But we can still talk, right?”

 

“Alright,” the dwarrowdam agreed, accepting the knife. She grinned at him as she bit into the soft white flesh. “Shame you have no seasoning.”

 

Kíli was about to bite back some snarky comment about being sorry he couldn’t bring the gourmet chefs of Erebor with him, when she reached into her own pack and pulled out several bunches of herbs and two vials. She sprinkled some of the powder from a vial onto the bird and topped it with some shredding of leaves from one of her herb bunches. She passed the knife back to Kíli who bit into the morsel gingerly. Taste filled his mouth and before he could stop himself he sighed in ecstasy.

 

“That’s good.” He tore off more meat from the bird and passed it to her. “I thought you said you were hunting.”

 

“Hunting doesn’t always involve game,” she told him. “Some of these herbs are mighty tricky to find, and even harder to collect if you don’t know how to do it properly.”

 

Kíli resisted the urge to scoff. “Really?”

 

“Of course,” she retorted testily, sensing his scepticism. “They must be prepared in all different ways. For example, this,” she drew out a sprig of a dark red plant with ruby leaves and a cluster of nasty-looking black berries on the end.

 

“That is poisonous,” said Kíli, proud of his herbological knowledge. “Everyone knows that.”

 

“In its raw form, it is. But once burned…” The dwarrowdam held out the branch over the fire. The leaves began to smoke and blackened. The berries became charcoal. She drew it back from the fire and crumbled the leaves to a dust with her fingers and sprinkled it over some of the meat. She held it out to Kíli, who didn’t move.

 

“I’m not trying to poison you!” she insisted, taking a bite herself to prove it before brandishing it at him.

 

Kíli, still regarding the morsel of meat warily, gingerly took slid it off the tip of the knife and after a moment’s hesitation, put it in his mouth. To his surprise, the bird now had a smoky, fruity flavour, as if it had been cooked in berry juice and then left to caramelize. He made a sound of exquisite gustatory pleasure and a proud smile flashed across the dwarrowdam’s face before she quickly repressed it.

 

“It can be dangerous to come out here unarmed,” he noted.

 

“I’m not unarmed, remember?” she retorted. She patted her side and pulled out the reasonably small knife she had brandished earlier.

 

“That’s all you’ve got? I hope you at least know how to use it.”

 

The dwarrowdam’s lips tightened. She put away the knife wordlessly and stared into the fire.

 

Kíli felt bad. He hadn’t meant to offend her. As a peace offering, he held out his flask. The dwarrowdam, after a second’s pause, reached out and took a swig. She showed no indication of the burning alcohol searing her throat as she passed it back to him. Kíli chuckled slightly.

 

“What?” she snapped defensively.

 

“Don’t pretend it’s not strong stuff, I know you can feel it.”

 

“I’ve had stronger,” she sniffed.

 

“Is that so,” Kíli smiled. He began humming his tune from before, the giddiness of alcohol returning to him.

 

He passed her the flask again. She settled a little closer to him so she could reach it more easily.

 

“When are you heading back to Erebor?” she asked after a reasonably amicable pause. Kíli was surprised but pleased he hadn’t initiated the conversation for once.

 

“Tomorrow,” he sighed. “It’s only a few hours away from here. And my mother would never forgive me if she couldn’t celebrate my birthday with me.”

 

“How old are you?”

 

“Ninety,” Kíli grimaced. “Big birthday. Lucky me.”

 

“You’re practically going bald,” she commented, and Kíli looked at her, unsure if she was teasing or just being rude. He saw the red flushes on her cheeks and had a feeling she had been lying about having tasted stronger stuff.

 

“And how old are you then?” he asked.

 

“That is also none of your concern,” she replied, as she took the flask out of his hands again.

 

“You look like a greenling to me.”

 

“I’ve heard that since the day I was born,” she responded, and Kíli could detect a steely hint of bitterness there. “That and the fact that I’m female have been the banes of my life.” She scowled into the fire.

 

“You don’t seem like you’ve been around long enough make such grand statements,” Kíli teased.

 

Her eyes glittered warningly. “Oh, I assure you, I have!” she hissed. “Why do people always assume I’m so _green_?”

 

She got up angrily and stomped around a bit, Kíli trying hard to suppress his laughter.

 

“Oh come on, it was just a joke,” he called, noting his words were slurring again. “Sit back down, you’ll catch your death of cold.”

 

Scowling, she crossed the cave and re-took her place at his side. She tugged the flask out of his hands and took a long swig.

 

“Like that do you?” Kíli laughed. “Let’s play a game,” he suggested. “I have to guess how old you are; for every guess I get wrong, I drink, but if I get it, you have to.”

 

“Fair enough,” she replied cautiously. “So, start guessing.”

 

Kíli pondered for a moment. “Forty-five.”

 

“Please!” she scoffed. “Drink!”

 

Kíli obliged, then thought for another second. “Fifty-five?”

 

“I’m younger than you, but not by that much,” she snapped.

 

“Seventy?”

 

“Nope.”

 

“Seventy-five?”

 

“Nope.”

 

“I must be close,” Kíli groaned, dropping his head in his hands as he felt the alcohol making itself known in his slightly roiling stomach. “Eighty?”

 

“You’re closer than you think,” she said with a small smile.

 

“Eighty-five?”

 

“Go the other way!”

 

“Eighty-four?”

 

“Finally,” she groaned, rolling her eyes.

 

Kíli triumphantly held out his flask and she took it, taking a sip. “Come on, you’ve got to have more than that!” he chided. The dwarrowdam threw him a withering look, then held it to her mouth for a few long seconds before pulling away and wincing slightly.

 

“Eighty-four?” Kíli repeated, once he was satisfied the terms of their game were upheld. “You _are_ green.”

 

The smile was wiped off her face in an instant. “And you’re ninety, and still can’t hold your drink,” she snapped. She tossed him the flask and he fumbled to catch it. She laughed once. “My point exactly.”

 

She stood up. The world immediately started spinning but she was determined to show no signs of her inner inebriation, apparently ineffectually, as the dwarf started laughing.

 

"You've tasted stronger have you, eh?" But his laughter stopped abruptly when, she pulled off her tunic and breeches. She was left standing in her underclothes, which accentuated the nuances of her figure very nicely.

 

“W-what are you doing?” he asked dazedly, trying to look desperately anywhere except at her.

 

She moved until her face was centimeters away from his, leaning on her arms and resting her hands on his knees, making it impossible for him to look away from her. “Proving I’m not green,” she whispered, and Kíli’s heart started hammering at the huskiness of her voice. “You don’t mind do you? If I sleep like this?”

 

Kíli gritted his teeth. How had he ended up in a maturity war with this stranger of a dwarrowdam? “Not at all,” he replied through clenched teeth, trying hard to focus on the darkness outside the cave.

 

He heard her quiet laughter, and was startled by a soft hand ghosting over his jaw. “If I didn’t know better, Mister Ninety, I would say that the way your heart is hammering would suggest that you’re pretty green yourself,” she murmured in a voice that was practically a purr.

 

……

 

Meron didn't have a clue what she was doing really. All she knew was her pride had been dented by his comment that she was green, and this infuriated her, which made her determined to prove him wrong. Besides, the alcohol was addling her mind - she didn't often drink, and she now remembered why, as she watched herself as if from afar as she blatantly tried to seduce this dwarf, wondering if this was one of those drunken decisions she would regret later. But then again, for all his infuriating qualities, he wasn't unattractive, though she was sure the blasted whiskey amplified her attractions towards him.

 

He didn't move so she held his eyes for a few long moments, before curling her mouth in a contemptuous smirk. She unpacked her bedroll and spread it on the ground near the fire. It was dying out now and she shivered in spite of herself.

 

“You’ll catch your death of cold,” a voice said behind her. It sounded quite bewildered.

 

“I’ll be fine,” she muttered groggily, trying to conceal the fact that her teeth were chattering. Having gone this far, she would _not_ put her clothes back on, even if she was to wake with a monstrous head cold tomorrow. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, trying to quell the tipsy giddiness overtaking her mind.

 

A soft sound made her sit up too quickly, and the world roiled again. “What do you think you’re doing?” she snarled, or tried to – it came out as more a garbled mumbling of words. The other dwarf had laid out his bedroll next to hers and was pulling off his coat.

 

“Go to sleep,” his voice said from what could have been many miles away. Someone pushed her shoulder down gently, placed a folded up cloth as a pillow under her head. Something heavy was laid down over her.

 

“Hey,” she tried to protest, but her mind was getting foggy and sleep seemed so inviting, especially now she had a pillow and the warm weight of what felt like a coat over her.

 

Before she lapped up the delicious, wonderful sleep ebbing at the corners of her brain, she thought she heard a low chuckle. “And _I’m_ the one who can’t hold their liquor…”

 

......

 

Kíli knew he was an affectionate drunk, and he guessed it was that part of him that incited his protective tendencies towards this surly, irritating, and clearly very cold dwarrowdam. Even in his tipsy state he had manners enough to stuff his tunic under her head and drape his coat over her. She was sound asleep before he laid down beside her on his unfurled bedroll. He couldn’t pretend he hadn’t been taken aback by the dwarrowdam’s advances, but Kíli put it down to drunken brazenness and her attempt to get him back for his comment that she was green. Now she was asleep, maybe he could have some peace and return to his pleasant solitude from before.

 

His mind felt pleasantly dazed and he lay awake for a while, smiling happily to himself and thinking of the next morning, when he would get back home and have his little lass back in his arms, perhaps drop by Dís’ in the evening (she would be furious if he spent his ninetieth birthday without her), then curl up in front of the fire and read stories to Míyah until she dozed off in his arms –

 

He was drawn out of his happy daydreaming as the dwarrowdam next to him shook violently. Kíli craned his neck to look at her. If he’d thought he was cold, it was clearly nothing compared to her. She was still sleeping but her body was quaking with chills. The tip of her nose (quite a long nose for a dwarrow, he thought) looked pale and was freezing when he grazed it gingerly with a fingertip. After all, she was in just her smallclothes ( _Dwarrowdams_ , he almost muttered aloud, rolling his eyes).

 

Kíli, when drunk, had been known to break the barriers of personal space on more than one occasion, but even he hesitated. He knew that two bodies could heat eachother better than one, but he was certain this aggressive dwarrowdam wouldn’t appreciate this simple science, even in her inebriated state (he knew she was drunk, no matter what she said). But if he did nothing, and simply let her suffer in her cold, surely she would die or at least get ill from hypothermia? Kíli huffed at himself internally. He was over-dramatising things. She wouldn’t _die_ ; she would probably just wake up stiff, sore and with a horrendous cold (and hangover! he added) in the morning. However, Kíli’s decision was made for him when she shuddered bodily again; when Kíli touched her hands they too were freezing.

 

Kíli carefully shifted his bedroll closer to hers so the edges were overlapping. He made sure there was a blanket forming a chaste barrier between their bodies before he pressed her back to his chest and wound an arm around her waist. He covered her hands with his own and rubbed them to try and encourage the blood to flow back into them.

 

The dwarrowdam stirred and Kíli held his breath, waiting for the tirade of angry words. But to his surprise, she sighed and turned around to face him. Her nose touched his bare skin and Kíli almost gasped – it was as if someone had pressed an icicle to the spot on his chest. However, Kíli couldn’t pretend he didn’t enjoy the extra warmth as he doubled up the covers over both of them and snuggled a little tighter together. He made sure to outstretch one arm to allow the dwarrowdam to pillow her head on it and kept his other hand respectfully in the centre of her back. He was still a gentleman. But now he was a warm gentleman.

 

……

 

Kili woke to the sensation of being unceremoniously rolled to the floor as blankets were tugged from underneath and over him. His brain was too foggy to even comprehend a vocal response or even sit up, despite the sounds of movement around him. He was too sleepy to do anything but bury himself in his blankets once more and allowed sleep to overtake him and when he next awoke he was alone. The dwarrowdam was gone.

 

 _Rude_. Kili sat up, massaging his temples in an attempt to clear his brain, which currently felt as thought it was stuffed with cotton. The cold ashes of the fire lay a few feet away from him, and next to that his empty hipflask. Empty…

 

He groaned as he remembered the night before with a mixture of annoyance and embarrassment. Had - had they _cuddled_? Kili felt heat rise to his face and he groaned again, before a wave of irritation swept over him. After all, he had shared with her his food, his drink and even his body heat, and she saw fit to leave without a simple thank you or even a goodbye the next morning? Well, some people weren’t worth bothering with. He hoped never to see her again.

 

Kili dressed, shouldered his pack and made his way through the slush back towards the Lonely Mountain.

 

 

 

**Fate clapped her hands and smiled – at last! It had required some very convenient circumstances, courtesy of her, but at last it had happened; finally, they had met.**

**Fate knew there were too options when two people so alike came face to face with one another, just as there were two options if a person was to meet themselves: he would either hate him or love him at first. But she knew ultimately the latter would prevail; all that it would require now was persistence.**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	2. Kili's Birthday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kili's ninetieth birthday party, spent with friends and family and a special gift from Fili.

“Adad!” Míyah sang as soon as she saw him.

 

“My _ghivashel!_ ” Kíli swept her into his arms and swung her around. The first thing he did whenever he got back from scouting, before changing, bathing or even dropping off his weapons, was to immediately go to Aliyah and Fíli’s. Míyah would always either stay there or with Dís when Kíli was away on scouts, which was often. He knew though that he was one of the most valuable scouts, and his pride at this swelled, though it didn’t stop him missing his daughter intensely every second he was away.

 

“I missed you Da!” Míyah told him, bopping him on the nose. “You are not to go away again!”

 

“Of course not, princess,” he said humbly, bowing his head until their foreheads touched. “I will be sure to ask your express permission before I so much as use the lavatory.”

 

“Good. What is a lava-torey?” she asked.

 

“Doesn’t matter,” Aliyah told her, shaking her head with a tiny smile when Kíli caught her eye and grinned. Míyah shimmied out of his arms and headed back to the playroom.

 

“Was she good?” Kíli asked, eyeing the tray of hot biscuits Aliyah had pulled out of the oven. The palace had staffed kitchens of course, but Aliyah never liked to trouble them except for the evening meals. Good job too, Kíli thought, as she was a fantastic cook. She and Bombur were constantly feuding with eachother, both vying for Thorin, Fíli and Kíli’s approval as they presented endless samples of titbits to be tasted, a competition in Kíli at least was only too happy to comply.

 

“She was wonderful, of course,” Aliyah replied. “Ate all her veg and went to bed good as gold – shame the same couldn’t be said of my own brood…” she muttered dourly.

 

Kíli grinned. “I’m glad. Although by the sounds of it, she won’t want to leave for a good while.” Shrieking laughter and uproarious calls were drifting into the kitchen from the playroom.

 

“How was the scouting?” Aliyah asked.

 

“Fine,” Kíli replied automatically. “I’ve actually been hunting for the last two days, they said they had enough on the team to spare one.”

 

“Been sleeping rough, have you?” Aliyah clucked. “No orcs then?”

 

“Nah,” Kíli grinned. “Haven’t been orcs round these parts for years. Probably never will be again, if they know what’s good for them.”

 

“Fíli still worries.”

 

“Fee _always_ worries.”

 

“True. But then again, what kind of a king would he make if he didn’t?”

 

“I was thinking I might take Míyah with me sometime. On a trip, I mean,” he explained. “I think she’d like it.”

 

“Shh… listen.” The two dwarrows heard the sounds of what appeared to be a heated argument coming from the playroom. They crept down the hallway and peered around the door. Rili looked extremely disgruntled; his get-up was that of a dwarrow princess, and he was glaring warily at Míyah, who was trying to force his hands still enough to coat them with thick pink nail polish. Aliyah wondered where they had found that, and made a mental note to lock away her cosmetics with more care. Rili protested loudly when Maiyah succeeded in grabbing one of his hands. He tugged at his skirt petulantly and cried, “Why do _I_ have to be the princess? I’m not even a girl!”

 

“Because you’re the youngest, that’s why,” Míyah told him authoritatively, deciding to abandon the nail polish and straightening her helmet and mock chainmail. “You haven’t learned to fight yet so you have to be a part that _doesn’t_ fight.”

 

“That’s silly! You should be the princess, because _you’re_ a girl!”

 

“I should not!” The cousins glared at eachother.

 

Frerin looked at both of them and sighed heavily. “Fine! _I’ll_ be the princess if you both are just going to bicker about it!” He pulled the dress over his brother’s head and donned it himself. It had been an old one of Aliyah’s when she had been a dwarfling, and was still a little too big, but he rolled back the sleeves matter-of-factly, revealing the frilly lace cuffs. With a crow of delight, Míyah took the crown off Rili’s head, and set it ceremoniously on Frerin’s golden curls. “Don’t laugh at me,” Frerin scowled. “Now pass me the nail polish and jewellery.”

 

Kíli and Aliyah doubled up in silent giggles, covered their mouths and sprinted back to the kitchen before the children could spot their spying parents.

 

“He is just like Fíli,” Aliyah wheezed breathlessly. ”So diplomatic. He’ll make a fine head of state some day.”

 

“I’ll bet,” Kíli grinned, reaching for a biscuit. The tray clanged to the floor, biscuits scattering as Kíli howled and swore. “ _Aule,_ that is _hot!”_

 

“Kíli!” Aliyah cried, but there was more amusement than genuine anger in her chiding tone. Kíli gave her his guiltiest smile, one that had worked since childhood, and she rolled her eyes but forgave him.

 

He reached into his pack. “Of course, I wouldn’t go hunting and not bring you back any spoils. I can prepare it for you if you like?”

 

Aliyah smiled. “How kind. Fresh rabbit, what a treat. I do miss game.”

 

Kíli rolled up his sleeves and got to work skinning and gutting the small animals while Aliyah began preparing pastry to make rabbit pie.

 

The dwarflings rushed into the room just as Kíli finished skinning the second rabbit. At the sight of him, his nephews began to clamour words of greeting and Rili tried to clamber into his lap for a hug.

 

“Wait, my hands, I’m covered in blood!” but it was too late. Míyah had already launched herself at him and he was forced to catch her to prevent her falling.

 

“Ew, Da, you smell of blood,” Míyah wrinkled her nose.

 

“You’re not exactly peaches and cream yourself anymore,” Kíli retorted, with his eyes on her dress, now smeared with the traces of what had been on Kíli’s fingers. He tried to wipe the worst of the gore away, but only succeeded in making ht mess worse. Míyah giggled.

 

Kíli knocked his head lightly against his cheeky daughter’s and washed his hands in the sink. Míyah trailed after him, immediately lifting her arms and demanding to be held as soon as he was done. Kíli willingly obliged.

 

“I think we had better get going,” he told Aliyah. “This one needs a bath.”

 

“Aw, Da!” she whined. “I had one yesterday!”

 

Kíli gave her a half stern, half amused look. She retorted with her best puppy eyes, but Kíli still won.

 

“It’s good to have you back,” Aliyah said. “And before I forget… Happy birthday!” she cried, pulling a lavish-looking cake from behind a box on the counter where it had been hiding. Frerin and Rili instantly started a chorus of “Happy Birthday Uncle Kee!” and Míyah landed a wet smacker of a kiss on his stubbly cheek.

 

Kíli’s face cracked into a huge grin. “Ah, you really didn’t have to…”

 

“I helped make the cake!” Míyah proclaimed loudly.

 

“Did you now?” Kíli bounced her a little on his hip. Admittedly, the slightly wonky green letters reading _Hapy Bithday Da_ were a bit of a give-away. Aliyah beamed.

 

“We’re throwing a little party later in your honour. Just a little one,” she insisted at his expression. ”There will be presents,” she added as an incentive.

 

Kíli’s infectious smile broke out once more. “Thank you. We’ll see you later then!”

 

Kíli arrived at his own party, as promised, at seven, and, not as promised, the party was not so little. As much as Kíli denied it, everyone knew he was only pretending when he insisted he didn’t like having lots of attention and affection lavished on him. All the family was there, as well as most of the company and many other dwarrows of Erebor who wanted to wish their prince many happy returns. Kíli attracted a huge following, Thorin noted, as he squeezed past what felt like hundreds of bodies to give his nephew a warm hug and proffer his own birthday wishes. The room was immensely crowded. He was down-to-earth, a people’s prince, and had made lots of friends thanks to his face-splitting smile and his kindness. He was never too high to help anyone and would often hunt and distribute game, even though there was no need given the flourishing farms and livestock the dwarrows of Erebor had conjured up in only a few years. The lad wore his heart on his sleeve and anyone could see he was having a good time.

 

Kíli appreciated that Aliyah had decided to host the party in her and Fíli’s own apartments – being the second prince, he felt out of place slightly in the great public halls. He knew he was just the spare after all (“The _second born_ ,” Fili insisted, wincing every time he used that word), and while he loved the attentions and affections of everyone he knew, he preferred it in private, where all of Erebor couldn’t see him and think of him as presumptuous.

 

Bombur and Aliyah had for once set aside their culinary rivalry and had worked together to produce a massive spread of all of Kíli’s favourite foods. Kíli was plied with rich wine, hands rained down on his back, and he positively went deaf from the number of congratulations blessed on him by everyone there. The birthday cake was dished out at the end, topped with fresh cream, and Kíli rolled his eyes at the predictable jokes about him becoming a fire hazard, the ninety candles peppering the cake blazing brightly.

 

The little dwarflings, high on a sugar rush after all the sweets, were still running around madly after the meal, while the adults enjoyed post-dinner port, and Fíli finally managed to talk to Kíli. Kíli had been surrounded by well-wishers as soon as he entered the room, and Fíli had let him be. Now most of guests had bade their goodbyes and Kíli was sprawled on a seat next to the fire, alone for once.

 

He smiled at Kíli as he finally plopped down beside him on the bench. “Happy birthday, _nadadith_. Although maybe I’ll have to stop calling you that, now you’re ninety and you might actually grow up,” he teased.

 

Kíli groaned. “I’ve not found it in me to grow up yet, at this point I doubt it will ever happen,” he replied.

 

“Have you enjoyed your presents?” Fíli asked. Kíli beamed.

 

“Of course. People are so generous. Look what Dori gave me, he said he made it himself!” Kíli pulled Fíli over to the table where all his presents were piled, the floor around it strewn with shreds of ribbon and other wrapping. He held out to Fíli a fine-looking jacket made of suede. It was not excessively adorned, made more for practical use, but the fur lining was soft and a little delicate silver embroidery encircled the cuffs. “He said he made it black so no one would see the stains I’ll undoubtedly get on it.” Kíli rolled his eyes but grinned.

 

Fíli gave a low whistle, marvelling the dwarf’s craftsmanship. “Not that you haven’t got enough already, but here’s one from me,” he said, handing Kíli a package wrapped in navy silk.

 

Kíli grabbed it happily and began feeling it with his fingertips. “Hm, I wonder what this is.”

 

“Just open it already, will you?” Fíli hurried him, a note of nervousness detectable in his voice. Kíli shot him a curious look, then tore the silk aside.

 

It was a leather-bound book. When Kíli opened it, he found it was full of sketches.

 

“Oh Mahal,” he said softly, thumbing through the pages and catching glimpses of himself and Fíli as children, images of Thorin and Dís. He stopped at the last sketch, one of his own Míyah and Frerin, the mischievous glitter detectable even in their graphite reconstruction. “How did you do this?”

 

“I asked Ma for sketches she could bear to part with,” Fíli said sheepishly. “And I hired a few artists to make some more of Frerin and Míyah. I wanted you to have a family album. Of course, it’s not finished.” He indicated to the blank pages at the end of the book. “So you can fill the rest as Míyah grows up… and who knows who else may appear there too.”

 

Kíli was silent for a few moments and Fíli instantly regretted what he’d said. But Kíli was concentrating on one of the pages; Fíli glanced down and saw with a lurch it was a picture of Safiyah. But Kíli was smiling, tracing a finger across her cheek on the paper.

 

“I love it. Fee, it’s amazing. And don’t pretend I know you didn’t draw some of these,” he laughed, nudging Fíli as he blushed. “You’re a talented artist, brother.”

 

“Happy birthday,” Fíli said again, grabbing Kíli in a headlock and kissing the top of his head.

 

Later that night, full of cake and wine and goodwill, Kili tumbled into bed, Míyah snuggled into his side. She wasn’t usually allowed to sleep in the big bed with him, as she was a big girl, but tonight he indulged her. She meant far more than the world to him and he had missed her terribly in the last few days; it was an immense comfort to hear her soft breathing and have one of her tiny hands clutching his nightshirt, two fingers of the other stuffed inside her mouth. He made a mental note that he would have to try and persuade her out of that habit too, but for now it was doing no harm.

 

It was with sleepy satisfaction that he realised he hadn’t thought of the bothersome dwarrowdam all day, and that thought gave him peevish pleasure.


	3. Winter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a fluffy family interlude, not relevant to the rest of the story but Meron will be back next chapter!

No one had noticed the mountain slowly descending into winter, the frost settling over window-panes and lawns before dawn, the increase in frequency with which they stoked the fires, the way they relied on their furs more. The first snows came the morning after Durin's Day. The adults, all nursing intense hangovers after the raucous festivities of the night before, couldn't bring themselves to be excited, unlike the children, who, as they did every year, screamed with delight at the first sight of the soft flakes falling. Frerin, Rili and Míyah could barely wait to be wrapped up warmly, quivering with giddy excitement as their parents bundled them up with scarves and gloves before they charged outside, hollering and laughing madly. They joined the raging snowball fight already in full force. Soon the air was rife with delighted screams, shrieks and the sound of slush whirling through the still-falling snow.

 

It eventually conspired to be boys versus girls. Hours later, Fíli, Aliyah and Kíli leaned against the stone walls of the city as they watched Míyah hold her own behind the snow wall she had built to protect herself - the other girls had soon tired of being cold and wet and drifted inside. Most of the younger children too had either surrendered, shivering, or been swept inside by overly-anxious parents. Rili lolled against Aliyah's thick fur collar, eyelids beginning to flutter as the day's exertion caught up to him.

 

The boys team too had diminished, but Míyah was still outrageously outnumbered. Fíli watched her concentration as she crouched down to get at the firmer, more compact snow underneath the light flakes that had drifted to the surface of the ground. She had learned that snowballs made out of that snow had the double advantage of tending to fly better and having a greater impact on their victim.

 

The boys were getting frustrated at Míyah's clever strategy. One of them sneaked out from behind their own snow fort, wet fistful of snow poised. He crept right up to the wall where Míyah, unknowing, still concentrated over the snowball she was formulating.

 

Fíli began to cry out a warning, but too late - when she looked up, the dwarfling flung the snow right into her face.

 

Míyah leapt to her feet, wicked fury burning in her eyes and cheeks before her face crumpled and an indignant wail broke from her lips.

 

Kíli was by her side in a second, rubbing her red face with his scarf and pressing kisses lightly to her cold cheeks and nose.

 

"Alright, that's enough," Aliyah said over the heads of the celebrating victorious boys. "Go inside now and warm up. I believe there is a big bonfire and cakes in the main hall."

 

The thought of sweet treats sent everyone scampering back inside, except Frerin, who looked up guiltily at Míyah, still bawling into Kili's shoulder. He tugged at the hem of Kili's coat.

 

"Míyah - Mi?" he called hesitantly. "I'm sorry!"

 

Míyah stopped crying and surveyed him for a second. Frerin gave a tentative smile, before a snowball Míyah had stashed behind her back smacked him square in the face.

 

Kíli and Fíli roared with laughter, but Kíli's laughter stopped abruptly as Míyah shoved a fistful of snow into his face too.

 

"You play dirty," Kíli told her, digging his fingers into her side, making her squirm with tickles, though Fíli didn't miss the note of approval in his brother's tone.

 

“Ah, it’s a shame we’re too old to do that now,” Fili lamented, watching as Míyah grabbed Frerin’s hand and ran after the others in the promised direction of sweets. He kicked the ground beneath his boot ruefully, watching the white flurry he unearthed resettle gently.

 

“Yes, dear brother,” Kíli replied thoughtfully, slowly reaching for a fistful of snow. “It is indeed…”

 


	4. Meeting Meron... Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Possibly Kili's worst nightmare...

Meron was practising. She liked to practise at dusk, when she was least likely to meet dwarves who would jeer at a dwarrowdam using weapons. Her brothers had all been too busy of late to practise with her, and she was frustrated at her lack of a sparring partner. Few took her seriously when she said it was her dream to be a warrior. Admittedly, the situation was much better than it had been generations ago, and it was no longer uncommon for dwarrowdams to be trained, but usually it was more for basic self-defence, and dams in the army were still few and far between.

 

Meron tested the weight of the sword in her hands once again and savoured the sight of it. She had painstakingly resisted from buying anything and worked twice as hard, even taking up a job as an assistant in an apothecary, involving endless hours of scouring the countryside for rare herbs and concocting endless potions and brews, before she could stride back to the metalworker’s market stall and proudly purchase that sword. Just as it had the first time she had lifted it, it felt like a dream in her hands, light but deadly, small enough to not be a burden when she went out on hunts or hikes. She smiled as she traced the runes spelling out her name which Oran had carved into the pommel as a surprise.

 

She swung at the practise dummy, almost sighing with pleasure as it cut effortlessly through the air–

 

“You’re skilled with a sword,” came a voice behind her, and she spun around, automatically preparing to butcher the being that shocked her. Two blades came up to meet her own and Meron found herself parried by the Heir of Durin himself.

 

She lowered her weapon immediately. “My prince, I beg your pardon.”

 

“Oh don’t. And please call me Fíli,” he said with a sheepish grin. “I hate it when people call me that outside of boring meetings.”

 

“Alright… Fíli,” she said, testing the name on her tongue and trying not to hide a smile. “And your grace is very kind. I’ve only just started learning swordsmanship.”

 

“A curious occupation for a dam,” he commented, but there was no sly mocking undertone in his voice, only honest curiosity in his eyes.

 

“I think it’s best for everyone to learn self-defence.”

 

“I quite agree,” replied Fíli. “But I can see you are trained well past the basics!”

 

Meron smiled modestly.

 

“What weapons do you usually practise with?”

 

“Archery is my strength. I am often sent out to hunt in my family, as I have the best aim out of my four brothers.” Meron couldn’t suppress a note of pride in her voice this time and she grinned wolfishly. “My parents were none too surprised.”

 

Fíli laughed. “My brother too favours archery, and we were grateful for that as well during our time of exile in the Blue Mountains.”

 

“My ears are burning?” a voice called, and just before Fíli could turn, a dwarf had barrelled into him from behind, catching him around the neck and almost taking him down.

 

“ _Oof_ , Kíli, you’ve grown heavier!” Fíli complained. “You’ve been eating far too much at the feasts.”

 

Kíli merely grinned cheekily and flicked Fíli’s moustache beads. Then he caught sight of the dwarrowdam he had been talking to and his face flushed crimson. Meron hastily lowered her head, her hair swinging in front of her face to hid her own suddenly flaming cheeks.

 

Fíli took this in, one eyebrow cocked suspiciously, but made no comment. “Kíli, I think we have a new recruit – how would you care to join the King’s Guard?” he asked Meron, who gasped.

 

“I – I would love to!” she spluttered. “It would be – such an honour!”

 

“Good.” Fíli smiled, humour in his eyes.

 

“Thank – thank you, your grace!”

 

“Fíli,” he reminded her gently. “Tomorrow, join us for lunch in the great hall. I should like to introduce you to Dwalin, the current head of our defensive forces, and some of the others you’ll be working with. Although now you’ve turned up, that saves me one introduction.” Fíli nudged Kíli, who hadn’t said a word but stared determinately at anything except the dwarrowdam in front of them.

 

Meron bowed deeply again, thanking him once more and excusing herself.

 

“ _Fíli!_ ” Kíli hissed as soon as Meron was out of earshot. “Are you _mad?_ ”

 

“What?” Fíli asked, eyes big and blue with genuine innocence. “Have you seen the way she fights? She’s excellent, and modest to boot. Gloin could learn a little from her,” he added slightly sagely.

 

“She’s a _dam_!” Kíli insisted. Fíli raised an eyebrow.

 

“Is there a problem with having a dam in the defensive forces? With dwarves, we say if they can fight they’re in, why should we make different rules for her?”

 

“But don’t you think,” Kíli almost growled in frustration. “Don’t you think she’ll bother–”

 

“You mean she’ll bother _you_ ,” Fíli sighed. “What was that all about, by the way, all that blushing? Have you met?”

 

Kíli coloured again. “W-well, once,” he stammered.

 

“Come on, tell me,” Fíli probed, prodding his brother, who swatted his hand away ferociously. Fíli almost squealed with glee. No matter how the years passed, winding Kíli up would always be his favourite pastime.

 

“Never you mind,” Kíli scowled, face almost purple with the depth of his blush. He wasn’t about to tell his brother how she had tried to seduce him after his merciless teasing, leaving him too bewildered to even move and yet somehow they had ended up _cuddling_ the first time they had ever met.

 

“Give her a chance, Kee.” Fíli poked him again and quickly pulled himself out of Kíli’s swiping range. “Watch her train.”

 

“But–”

 

“Kíli, enough!” Fíli interrupted. “I’ve made my decision. Besides, she’s an archer too, and we can always do with more archers. And you are going to take her under your wing to show her the ropes.”

 

“What _?_ ” Kíli cried. “ _I will do no such thing!”_

 

“Do I sense jealousy? I’m only teasing,” Fíli snickered. “But maybe it wouldn’t do you any harm to realise you’re not the only one skilled with a bow.” He prodded his brother a third time, finally goading him over the edge as Kíli launched himself at Fíli. They wrestled, grunts of anger soon dissolving into fits of giggles and sniggers.

 

“You’re still the biggest dwarfling of them all, Kee,” Fíli chuckled, tweaking his brother’s nose in a most infuriating way.

 

“Shut up!”

 

“What are you doing?” At the sound of Thorin’s voice, both dwarrows scrambled to their feet.

 

“Nothing, uncle!” they chirped in unison.

 

One look at Thorin’s face was enough to tell them he wasn’t fooled. He lowered his voice. “Sons of Durin do not take to wrestling, even in play, like common men in a tavern brawl,” he told them, but his gaze was fond as he looked upon them and gently cuffed the back of their heads.

 

……

 

“You _can’t_ be serious.”

 

Dwalin raised an eyebrow. “Surely you’re not so close-minded? Dams can be just as good as dwarves in the army.”

 

“I know that,” Kíli retorted.

 

Dwalin didn’t seem convinced by his answer but continued anyway. “Her skills are currently being analysed. I have already attested that she is strong with a sword, but seeing as you are the strongest archer it is up to you to judge her archery skills and see how her technique can be improved.”

 

Kíli sighed. “Fíli put this up to you, didn’t he?”

 

Dwalin ignored him. “Come see me later and we shall discuss her skill with a bow. Until then – be nice,” he added, giving Kíli a meaningful look.

 

Kíli knew when he was beaten so made his way towards the archery training grounds. He groaned inwardly at the sight of a regrettably familiar brunette with his back to him, about to set loose at the distant target. He gritted his teeth and made his way over to her.

 

As he approached, the dam let her arrow fly; it sailed through the air, landing with a _thunk_ neatly within one of the inner circles of the bullseye.

 

“Not bad,” Kíli allowed and she turned to look at him, her face colouring as recognition blossomed in her eyes. Kíli tried hard to keep the heat in his own cheeks under control.

 

“You,” she said tersely.

 

Kíli said nothing, but resisted the urge to give a snappy retort as he prepared his own bow. “You ought to hold it a bit more like this,” he told her, reaching out to adjust her fingers on her bowstring but she flinched away from him.

 

“You have some nerve!” she hissed.

 

Kíli felt himself temper rising, in spite of himself. “What?”

 

“You – after you harassed me the first time we even met!”

 

“Harassed you?” Kíli was definitely angry now. “May I remind you that it was _you_ who nearly died of hypothermia after that stupid stunt you pulled? I was just trying to keep you warm!”

 

“I would have been fine without your help,” she snapped, though her face had turned a deeper shade of red at the mention of her ‘stunt’. They glowered at eachother.

 

“Aren’t you here to watch me shoot?” she demanded after a few seconds.

 

“Fire away then!”

 

She turned her back on him, aligned herself once more, and began firing arrows. Their testy exchange seemed to have rattled her, but her aim got closer and closer to the target and with the fourth arrow she hit the bullseye. Kíli had to admit that though it was clear she had never had formal training, Meron was a natural.

 

“You shouldn’t stand with your feet so far apart,” Kíli informed her. “It’ll slow you down if something creeps up behind you.”

 

Meron spun around, Kíli having just enough time to draw his own sword before Meron had drawn hers and brought it up to clash with Kíli’s blade.

 

“That quick enough for you?” she snarled.

 

Kíli had reached the end of his tether. It seemed this dam could do nothing but aggravate him.

 

“I’ve seen enough,” he said, sliding his sword back into its sheath, turning on his heel and heading straight for the armoury where he knew Dwalin was waiting.

 

“She’s fine,” Kíli told him brusquely. “She doesn’t need my help. Not according to her anyway.”

 

He smirked slightly. “Got competition have we?”

 

“Far from,” Kíli snorted. “She’s good but she’s not _that_ good.”

 

Dwalin appeared to be resisting the urge to roll his eyes. He smiled, satisfied. “Very well. Our new recruit has been accepted – I shall meet with her to confirm tomorrow and she shall start shifts in two days time.”

 

Kíli wished he’d lied about Meron’s talents as an archer.


	5. Unwelcome Visitors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spring, and new dangers and revelations spark a change in Meron and Kili's relationship...

In different circumstances, it would be a beautiful evening. The moon had been hung in the sky all day, and finally the white shadow it had been was starting to glow, stealing light from the dying sun as it sank below the treetops. Spring had sprung, and barely even a chilly breeze threatened the balmy warmth leftover from the day - summer was definitely on its way. Kíli loved the way the golden light of the sun clashed with the white glow of the moon in the sky, and the way his shadow stretched long and languid behind him.

 

Kili jumped easily over a stream crossing their path then turned around, holding a hand out for Meron and scowling as she deliberately ignored it, landing lightly next to him and pretending he didn’t exist.

 

Yes, in different circumstances, it would be a beautiful evening. Of all the people Fíli could have assigned him with tonight, it had to be the surliest dwarrowdam known to Middle-Earth. It had not been an amicable day. Her prickly demeanor grated on him endlessly, and she had rejected all his efforts to be polite, with the result that they had travelled in waspish silence all day, speaking only to check directions or run over their orders again. Kíli was not amused with his brother’s attempts to force them to get along. At least he would only be gone two nights, he thought, good grace to Mahal…

 

Kíli stopped in front of a large boulder, thinking of offering Meron a leg-up over it before deciding against it – she would probably slug him if he tried to offer her help again. Kíli locked his fingers in two cracks near the top of the boulder and hoisted his leg up over the peak of the rock, then slid down the other side. He waited just long enough to see that Meron had managed to scramble over too, before turning on his heel and marching on.

 

He stopped again at the top of a high ridge and surveyed the glorious panorama before him. This was what he missed behind the stony walls of Erebor, this unending vast sense of _space_. Kíli could see the sky arching high above him, the river winding south, glinting in the evening light, past Dale and across the flat lands, and in the distance, if he shaded his eyes against the orange sun, he could just made out the Long Lake and the hazy towers of Laketown. He saw the undulating ridges and hills that made up the foot of the Lonely Mountain, and to the West a vast flat stretch until the shadowy smear of Mirkwood. The land in front of them was speckled with patches of forest and rock and –

 

Kíli squinted, staring at a clearing amidst a patch of forest in the West foothills of the mountain. Figures could be clearly made out, bustling around what seemed to be a camp. A light smudge of smoke was rising. Kíli’s heart lurched as he thought immediately of goblins or orcs. But they surely wouldn’t dare come close to this mountain, the memory of their last battle here still fresh in their minds?

 

“What are you staring at?” Meron asked. She had noticed his body stiffen and still, like a hunter who had just caught a scent.

 

“Down there,” he pointed. “What is that?”

 

Meron followed his finger. “They look like men. They have fires and aren’t afraid to be in the open.”

 

“What would men be doing so far from Dale?” Kíli wondered, staring with greater intent at the clearing. It wasn’t a very permanent-looking camp, he thought, so it was likely they were travelers. He frowned. The closest other city of men was Lake-town and that was to the south – these men didn’t look as if they were headed in that direction.

 

Kíli caught his breath as he suddenly made out a line of smaller figures being led out of the woods and into their sight of vision. The smaller figures could have been Halflings, but no they were too stocky… and they were walking in a way that suggested they were chained together. His blood ran cold.

 

“Slavers!” Kíli hissed. He straightened up and spat on the ground.

 

“What?” Meron replied sharply.

 

“Men! With dwarrows! In chains!” Kíli was shaking with visible fury. “We’ve got to go and free them.”

 

“No.” Meron’s blood had turned to ice. “Don’t go near them.”

 

Kíli stared at her with disbelief. “We can’t let them get away! And they could be headed for Erebor!” he gesticulated, pointing up at the mountain. “How dare they… Man scum!” he spat again and fixed his eyes murderously towards the clearing. He started down the ridge, half-slipping on the loose earth and soggy leaves.

 

Meron realized she was almost paralysed with fear and fury. “Kíli!” she shouted, a biting note of hysteria in her voice. “Stop!”

 

Kíli took no notice but continued half-running down the ridge. He had almost reached the tree line. Meron charged after him and lunged at his back.

 

They fell, both grunting as they tumbled down the slope. They wrestled for several minutes until Kíli managed to pull himself away and Meron leapt to her feet. Kíli glared at her then picked up his weapons and continued.

 

Meron automatically tore her bow off her back and notched an arrow. “If you keep moving I’ll shoot.”

 

Kíli turned, his eyes widening as he laid eyes on the bow, drawn, pointing directly at him. “You wouldn’t.”

 

“I would.”

 

Kíli snorted and took a few steps, but before he’d gotten far he had to dive to the side to miss the arrow that whizzed past his arm. He glowered at her, an expression of mixed incredulity and ire on his face. “What is wrong with you?” he demanded furiously.

 

“How much do you think they would like to add two more to their stock, one of them a dwarf prince to boot?” she hissed. “We are two dwarrows against a group of who knows how many men! Don’t be stupid!”

 

Kíli was appraising her. His jaw was set and his eyes burned. “Judging from the way you’re acting, I would almost think you are in league with these men!” he growled in a low voice.

 

Meron’s temper flared. “How dare you!” she snarled.

 

“In that case, I am going to go and save our kin,” he hissed. “You are coming with me, that is an _order_!”

 

“Kíli, _please_!”

 

Meron felt rising panic and anger swelling inside her. She could think of nothing else but to launch herself at Kíli once more, felling him with a thud and a gasp of pain.

 

“Get _off me_!”

 

Meron tried to pin Kíli to the ground, but for all her strength he had the advantage of height and proper training. He easily threw her off him and before she knew it she was backed up against a tree, Kíli pinning her there by the tops of her arms.

 

“Now I’m really starting to think you’re in league with them,” he said in a low, dangerous voice. Meron replied by spitting at his feet.

 

“We mustn’t go near them!” she insisted through gritted teeth. “We have to go back. There’s nothing we can do. We can send out reinforcements tomorrow!”

 

Kíli was about to fire out a retort but he suddenly froze. They could hear leaves and twigs crunching under boots and the sounds of something heavier rolling across the ground, accompanied by a strange, metallic clinking. Meron’s heart began to pound.

 

“Up a tree, quick,” Meron breathed.

 

Kíli didn’t hesitate but immediately grabbed her legs and lifted her high enough to catch the lowest branch. She held out a hand and he grabbed it, using it to help hoist himself into the tree too. They climbed as fast and as silently as they could until they found a safe perch, high enough above the ground to be rendered invisible by the leaves. Kíli thanked Mahal that it was spring.

 

The light was fleeing fast now the sun had fully disappeared behind the horizon, and its fading rays were the last source of light as Kíli and Meron craned their heads to see the source of the approaching footsteps and the strange clinking. Meron closed her eyes, trying to suppress the nausea, the fear, the hate rising within her.

 

The noises stopped and Kíli could see two men standing a few meters away from the bottom of their tree, looking around. They had with them a horse dragging behind it a menacing looking wagon, or rather a cage with wheels. Chains with manacles dangled from the top and sides of the cage, clanking against the bars and eachother menacingly when the wagon moved, explaining the source of the metallic clanking that had heralded the men’s arrival. The wagon was mercifully empty, but Kíli wondered where its inhabitants now were.

 

At that moment the men began to speak and Kíli strained his ears desperately. “Where do you think we lost ‘im?”

 

“Beats me,” grumbled the second man. “Don’t even know why we’ve been sent to find him – not as if he’s going to get anywhere with no food or shoes and the clothes he was in.”

 

“Still, we could have gotten a pretty price for him,” sighed the first man regretfully. “Now if I was a runaway dwarf, where would I go?” he pondered.

 

“It’s obvious isn’t it? That way!” the second man replied angrily, pointing up at Erebor. “It’s their sodding safe haven! And if he’s there, we’ve got no chance of ever getting him back, s’not like the Master’ll risk war with Thorin Oakenshield!”

 

There was a short silence. _The Master_ , Kíli thought. _These men are from Laketown._

 

“Why are we here anyway?” the second man continued sourly.

 

“The Master was hoping to see if we could pick up any stray dwarrows, given that they live around these parts,” replied the first man airily. “Be pretty easy to pretend like they’d just gone missing, or been killed and eaten by something.”

 

“I know why we’re _here_!” the second man snapped. “I meant why are we here, looking for one stray dwarf who escaped us! It’s not as if the others are likely to do the same, after they saw what happened when we caught the first runaway, and if he’s stupid enough to try it he deserves to die out here! We’ve already given them plenty, why should they miss one?”

 

“Just get on with it!” the first man cried angrily. He pulled on the horse’s reins and began leading the cage on. “If they wants that dwarf back, they wants that dwarf back! Its no business of ours why, I just can’t wait till we get back home and I can get down to a inn with a nice fat pouch of gold and buy myself a drink and a lady and forget about this whole business!”

 

The men’s arguing faded into muted grumbles as they vanished into the inky blackness that had suddenly descended around them. The sound of the clinking chains lingered and only when silence met Kíli’s ears did he turn to Meron. She was shaking slightly, her eyes staring after the men.

 

“The dwarrows,” she whispered. “Where are they taking them?”

 

“Laketown, by the sounds of it,” Kíli replied through gritted teeth. “The _audacity…_ at the foot of Erebor…” Anger swelled in him and he had to clench his hands into fists to keep them still, to stop them punching the tree.

 

“Where did they come from?” Meron asked. “The dwarrows, I mean.”

 

“It sounded like they were just picking up stragglers,” Kíli replied slowly. “It didn’t sound like they were planning any big raids or an ambush – they can’t be that well prepared. We should try to take them down tonight and bring them back to Erebor.”

 

“No,” Meron replied instantly. Kíli could barely see her in the dark but her answer stoked the flame of anger inside him.

 

“Why not?” he growled. “If there’s too many of them we can come back with reinforcements, but we should at least see if we could take them down ourselves. We both have our bows, we could fire at them from the trees and then set the dwarrows free.”

 

“We can’t risk it,” Meron replied, a strange tone in her voice that Kíli had never heard before. It was low and calm and Kíli realized it was fear.

 

“Are you afraid?” he asked her. Meron said nothing. “They won’t catch us,” he added, trying to sound reassuring.

 

“You don’t know them!” she replied, the familiar savage note in her voice back. “They will!”

 

On a whim, Kíli reached out to squeeze her forearm comfortingly but Meron jerked backwards.

 

“I’m not going back,” she spat out. “I can’t do that.”

 

Meron saw the confusion blossoming on Kíli’s face. With a resigned sigh, she ripped off her gauntlets and drew back her sleeves, holding out her wrists so they were illuminated in a streak of moonlight that filtered through the boughs above them. The scars, left from manacles clamped around her wrists for months, showed starkly in the silvery light.

 

Kíli stared, aghast.

 

“There’s more,” she told him, pulling back down her sleeves and re-strapping her gauntlets. “But I can hardly show you here.”

 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” Kíli’s mind was blank. “If you don’t mind me asking… how old were you?” he said finally.

 

“I was ten. They captured us when they raided our village at the foot of the Blue Mountains. A year later they met Val and Merupe, also exiled from Erebor, near the Iron Hills. They sold me to them and they have been my parents ever since.”

 

Kíli shuddered. He remembered a time during his childhood when they had heard of a smattering of man-organized raids on dwarrow villages, taking advantage of their vulnerability in the aftermath of Smaug. It was then that Dís had decided to move from the small town in the foothills where they were living and flee to a village further north, higher in the mountains and further away from the settlements of men.

 

“I remember the time of those raids,” he said slowly. “I was .. I must also been around nine or ten.” He looked up into Meron’s face questioningly. She seemed a little stricken.

 

“In that case, I guess my secret’s out,” she replied after a small silence. “I was small for my age, so they told my parents I was four. They think I believe I’m their real daughter, that I was to young to remember anything before they adopted me. But… I do,” she admitted. She heaved a sigh. “No one else knows my real age.”

 

Kíli let out a slow breath, tipping his head back to rest against the main trunk of the tree.

 

“Meron, daugher of Merupe…” he murmured quietly, as if testing the phrase on his tongue.

 

“It’s my real name,” Meron bit out, sensing the question behind his whisper. “It wasn’t what I was born, but it’s who I am now.”

 

Kíli knew better than to ask.

 

The moon was shaded by a cloud, and the world became complete blackness. Meron almost wanted to reach out her hand and feel if the other dwarf was still in front of her – he was so silent she might as well have been alone in the inky darkness.

 

“It’s funny… what you remember.” Meron swallowed, looking down at the murky ground far below them. “I don’t remember my parent’s faces. I don’t even remember their names, or the name of the village we were living in when we were taken and separated. But I remember, without a doubt, my name-day,” she said with a sad chuckle. “It was so frustrating, seeing my brother Cal get his first braids, his first sword, his first drink, his first _everything_ before me, even though I was two years his elder!”

 

There was another small silence, then Kíli finally spoke. “Thank you for telling me. Your secret’s safe with me, I promise.”

 

“If you breathe a word of this to anyone –“

 

“I know, I know, you’ll rip out my tongue and chop off my balls and turn them into pincushions.” Meron could hear the exasperation in his voice and she couldn’t help but smile.

 

“Something like that,” she confirmed, then sighed. “They said a dwarf had escaped – let’s hope they were right in thinking he would get to Erebor and they don’t catch him first.”

 

Meron heard rustling and saw Kíli’s shadowy form moving around. A hand groped in the darkness for hers and before Meron could say anything, a dry biscuit was pressed into her palm.

 

“I was really hoping we could have caught something and had a roast tonight,” came his disgruntled voice from somewhere in the darkness. “But I suppose this will have to do.”

 

Meron wolfed down the biscuit, not realizing how hungry she was until the first crumbs passed her lips. She frowned when she felt something else being pushed into her hands.

 

“Do you ever leave Erebor without a flask of alcohol?”

 

“You don’t have to have any if you don’t want to,” Kíli retorted. “It’ll heat you up but if you don’t agree I’ll have it back, thank you.”

 

Meron took a few swigs and passed it back to him. Admittedly, the whiskey was comforting as it slid burningly down her throat and nestled comfortingly like a beaming nugget of gold in her stomach. “Don’t get drunk and fall out of the tree.”

 

Kíli snorted. “How are we going to do this?” he added as an afterthought. “I don’t think its very safe to sleep here.”

 

“Not that we have much choice. And at least if we’re both up here neither of us will have to keep watch.” Meron thought for a minute. “I have some rope,” she suggested, reaching around for her small pack. “We could tie ourselves to the trunk or one of the branches.”

 

Kíli was silent for a second, as if thinking the plan through, even as Meron pulled out the rope and tied it securely around the trunk. She pushed Kíli against it and began winding the cord around his chest.

 

Kili gave a low whistle and a sly chuckle. “Normally someone has to buy me a drink before I let them tie me up…”

 

“Shut up,” Meron snapped. She tugged on the rope. “At least now you won’t fall out.”

 

“What about you?” Meron realized she had only brought one piece of rope. She wracked her brains for a second, and groaned inwardly as the only possible solution presented itself.

 

“What are you doing?” Kíli asked as Meron untied the knots she had made and began unwinding the rope. “You’re not going to let me fall to my death are you?”

 

“Move,” she said tersely. Kíli regarded her blankly, unmoving. “Open your legs,” she elaborated.

 

Kíli raised a sardonic eyebrow, though Meron missed this given the pitch-blackness. “Well now, for that you need to buy me at least _two_ drinks…”

 

“Just do it,” Meron snarled. She was grateful for the darkness to hide her flushing cheeks. “The only way we’ll both be able to tie ourselves here is if I sit between your legs. I’m not liking this any more than you are!” she assured him. Indeed, her heart was pounding at the thought of such an intrusion into her personal space.

 

Kíli finally obliged and Meron sat with her back against his chest, both pairs of their legs now dangling in thin air on the sides of the branch they were straddling. Meron finally finished winding the rope around her chest, effectively anchoring both her and Kíli to the tree. “There!” she exclaimed happily, proud of her handiwork.

 

“Why is it that whenever we leave Erebor we end up unintentionally cuddling?” Kíli grumbled.

 

“Don’t call it that,” Meron retaliated. “And I assure you the feeling’s mutual,” she added in a mutter.

 

“Your hair’s in my mouth,” Kíli spluttered behind her. “You’re too damn tall for a dwarrowdam.”

 

Meron considered elbowing him in the ribs and decided against it. “We had better get to sleep,” she stated stoutly. “We should get back as soon as we can to warn the others.”

 

Kíli grunted in what she supposed was agreement. His would his arms around her, clasping his hands together and resting them on the ropes around her stomach. “I can’t just leave these hanging by my side,” he insisted awkwardly.

 

“Fine. Whatever. Go to sleep!” Meron barked.

 

Kíli leaned his head back against the trunk of the fir tree, and Meron, after a second’s hesitation, rested her head on his shoulder. It had been a night of fear and adrenaline and secrets, so though it was still early, Meron found herself drifting off quickly.

 

……

 

They woke as dawn broke the next morning. After a hasty breakfast of an apple each and another mealy biscuit they shimmied down the tree and made their way back to Erebor as fast as they could (having skipped two proper meals now, Kíli’s haste was partially fuelled by his stomach’s need for a decent meaty meal). Throughout the hike, Kíli tried to dispel the scent that seemed to have burned itself into his nose; he had woken with his face inches from the nape of Meron neck and though he had hurriedly woken her, something about her had stayed in his nose all morning – fir mixed with sweat, intertwined with it some kind of floral muskiness that made Kíli almost want to smell more of it. Kíli scowled internally and grabbed a fistful of wild mint they passed, pressing it to his face and inhaling deeply, simply grunting “Allergies,” in reply to the confused look Meron shot him.

 

Thorin’s face was surprised when his nephew and the new scout Fíli had recruited entered his chambers. “Kíli, back so soon? I though you were due to be gone at least two nights.”

 

“We were, but-“ Kíli began but Meron cut across him. “We came across a group of slave-traders camped at the bottom of the mountain – dwarf slavers,” she added, ignoring the annoyed look Kíli threw at her for interrupting him.

 

Thorin’s face descended into a thunderous expression. “Slave traders? Here?” he roared. “How dare they enslave our kin, how _dare they_ venture _here_?”

 

Though his anger wasn’t directed at them, Kili and Meron felt themselves quailing in the face of his fearsome fury. After a tirade of insults to the barbarians of Laketown and a series of curses bestowed to the entire race of men, Meron and Kili were instructed to send out search parties to scan the woods in search of the runaway dwarf.

 

The parties dared not stay overnight, given the proximity of the slave-traders. Each night they returned, empty-handed and with every sad, shaking head Meron’s heart dropped lower. She felt so badly for the poor lost dwarf, whoever they may be, and prayed for their safe arrival.

 

The slavers disappeared after about a week, and it was then that Thorin reluctantly called off the search. The dwarf had not been found. The only conclusion they could come to after scouring the whole area, giving the slavers a wide berth, was that he had been recaptured and taken away. Meron couldn’t help but shed bitter tears that night. With venom in her heart, she wished an ugly, painful death to every creature involved in the enslavement of her kin, a suffering she remembered so well.

 


	6. Blessed Green (Part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The escaped slave is found, but he does not bring good news

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been struggling to write this chapter - it was one of those situations where you have all the rest of the story written, and it was just this chapter that stood in the way! Initially this chapter and the next were one long chapter, but i decided to split them into two parts instead. 
> 
> updates will be more frequent from now on, now that I've finished this tricky chapter :)
> 
> I'm sorry for all the hopeless battle terminology, I'm sure most of it probably doesn't make sense!

The annual Blessed Green Fest came around, in spite of Meron’s continued brooding. As usual, she had no intention of going any of the very public celebrations, but this year her parents insisted they go together. Meron wanted to roll her eyes, but she allowed herself to be forced into a faded green dress and wove a traditional belt of flowers to wrap around her waist.

 

Kili was surprised to see Meron at the midday banquet. He had never seen her in a dress before. She was standing against a wall, chewing on her nails, looking rather bored with the proceedings, which consisted of many people making lots of boring toasts. Kili dutifully sat and listened to each of them until they were finished, then made towards her in the crowd before noticing with a disappointment that she had gone.

 

He turned around, with the intention of finding someone else to talk to, but before he could take a step he felt a tugging on the end of his tunic. He looked down into Frerin’s face, hair braided neatly for the occasion. There was a slight crease between his eyebrows.

 

“Uncle Kee,” he said quietly. “Can you come with me for a minute?”

 

“Of course.”

 

Frerin led him through the crowds to the entrance hall, stopping just on the threshold to the city gates. Kili crouched down next to the dwarfling and Frerin leaned into him slightly.

 

“What’s wrong?”

 

“I thought I saw something,” he whispered, pointing. “I thought… I saw it moving. Over there. It looked almost like a person. It’s closer now than it was before.”

 

Kili’s heart jolted. His first thought was the slavers – they were back, come to take advantage of their distraction to pillage them. But Frerin was pointing at a small patch of shrubs and bushes a few hundred metres away; not enough shelter to hide a whole caravan or even a small group of men. Yet he was right, there did seem as if to be a figure lurking just out of sight.

 

Kili stood up with relief when he heard Fili’s voice behind him. “Frerin, there you are my lad.” Fili and Aliyah were strolling towards them. Frerin immediately ran to his mother who picked him up instinctively.

 

“I saw something, adad,” he said quickly. “Over there.”

 

Fili squinted in the direction his son was pointing. “He’s right,” Kili added quietly. “I saw it too.”

 

They brothers exchanged a look, and with a tiny movement, Fili nodded. They cautiously made their way towards the bush, drawing the daggers they both kept by their sides. Kili wished he had his arrows, and he knew Fili wanted his sword, wanted something more substantial than a paltry knife on the chance this was some foe.

 

They stepped quietly into the undergrowth.

 

“Hello?” Fili called cautiously. They both braced themselves for an attack. But none came.

 

“The movement was in this bush,” Kili murmured. Fili turned in the direction he had indicated. As they advanced, they heard a rustling and clinking.

 

“Show yourself!” Fili demanded.

 

After a tense second, two pale hands stretched out, palms upwards to show the holder was unarmed. A dwarf emerged, thin, pale and emaciated. He looked weak, and his feet were bruised and battered. His clothes were in tatters. Most shocking of all, however, were the manacles clenched around his wrists that had rubbed raw the skin beneath them.

 

“Aule,” Fili breathed.

 

The escaped slave took two faltering steps towards them before collapsing onto the ground.

 

……

 

Meron took it upon herself to be the escaped slave’s carer. She had sprinted to the Halls of Healing as soon as Kili had pulled her aside and told her he’d been found, and had stayed by his bedside ever since. They had called a blacksmith to remove the manacles from his wrists, revealing mangled, sore skin underneath. He still had not woken, though Oin said this was not a bad thing.

 

“His body is in a state and his nerves must be fraught. Aule knows how much sleep he’s managed to get in the last few weeks, let alone food.”

 

“We need to question him,” Thorin growled. “When can we wake him?”

 

Oin looked horrified. “Wake him? Your highness, I’m afraid there is no question of that. He needs rest, and a square meal or two.”

 

The dwarf stayed unconscious all day and well into the next. He was deeply dehydrated, so they dripped water into his mouth, at which he responded, despite his appearance of being in a coma; he gasped, mouth gaping, clutching at thin air as if begging for more.

 

Meron reluctantly went home to sleep, but was by his side again the next morning as soon as she could persuade Oin to let her back into the Halls.

 

She could hardly take her eyes off this dwarf. He was probably around fifty years older than her. His hair was scant and patchy, Oin predicted it had fallen out from the stress. His body was bruised and thin, his ribs prominent. He was covered in scratches, and several cuts that looked worse. His wrists and ankles had been caked in dried blood, and now that they were cleaned, the raw pink skin could be seen. Meron wondered how long he had been wearing those manacles, if he would bear scars like hers in years to come.

 

Worst were his feet – they were swollen and almost black in colour. They too were covered in scratches and cuts, from what looked like sharp rocks and thorns, many of which were infected, leaking blood and pus. Anywhere that was not cut was bruised and tender. It was what came of running barefoot through the forest and walking miles across all terrains in the caravan of the slavers. Oin said he was lucky he could save them. Meron was angered every time she laid eyes on them – what kind of monsters made anyone walk across the lands of Middle–Earth without shoes?

 

The dwarf finally woke in the evening of the next day.

 

His eyes fluttered open and immediately locked on hers. Meron, in the shocked few seconds before she registered what had happened, saw they were light brown in colour and the whites were bloodshot, irritated by dust and sleeplessness.

 

“Where… where am I?” he croaked.

 

“You’re in the Halls of Healing. You’re in Erebor, safe now,” she told him soothingly, before turning over her shoulder and calling Oin.

 

Oin was immensely relieved; they had been able to give the dwarf water, but he was deeply concerned that, unable to give him food while he was unconscious, he would waste away before their very eyes if he did not wake.

 

Oin introduced himself and began to explain to him the extent of his injuries.

 

“We welcome you to Erebor,” he finished with a low bow. “I will return with some food, if you feel up for it?”

 

“Yes!” the dwarf replied, with as much fervency as he could muster in that cracked, dry voice.

 

As soon as Oin left, worry filled the dwarf’s face again. He looked around him nervously, as though expecting someone to come barging in, accusing him of something, or haul him out of bed and carry him away. Meron laid a tentative hand on his shoulder. “We are not your enemies here,” she assured him softly.

 

The dwarf looked at her hesitantly. “Do you know who I am?” he whispered.

 

“Yes,” Meron replied after a pause. “You’re the escaped slave.”

 

His eyes widened as he choked. “How… how do you know?”

 

“A pair of scouts found a group of man-slavers at the foothills of Erebor. They were talking about an escaped slave,” she replied in a quiet voice. “I myself was one of them,” she added. “We sent out search parties, if only we could have found you sooner.”

 

The dwarf’s eyes filled with tears he took a few shuddering breaths.

 

“Don’t worry!” Meron soothed hastily. “They’ve gone now. You’re safe here.”

 

“When… when did they leave?” he managed to utter in a strangled voice.

 

“Must’ve been at least two weeks. And we discovered them a week before that.”

 

“I’ve been on the run for a month,” he croaked. “They picked up most of us around the foothills of the mountains, the north, the west... They lay in wait, snatching up anyone who was leaving… Most of us were just journeying to visit family friends, or we were traders…”

 

“They don’t do raids on the villages like they used to then,” Meron found herself saying stonily. The dwarf’s words were helping to piece together the parts in her mind, why the traders were camping at the base of Erebor, why they had stayed so long. She thanked Mahal that in all the time they were there, no one but trained scouts had strayed far from the gates.

 

The dwarf’s lips twitched. “You speak as if you know them.”

 

Meron did not smile. “I do.”

 

“No, they didn’t… We heard them talking about it, they knew if they took us just before we left, there wouldn’t be an alarm raised for weeks, even months, by which time they would be long gone. People would assume we’d run into trouble on the journey, or simply elongated our stay… They were so cruel. Just innocent people…”

 

At that moment, Oin returned, his arms full of bandages and salves. He peeled the wrappings off the dwarf’s feet . Throughout the procedure, the dwarf’s eyes never left Meron’s face. She gripped his arm, trying to convey to him strength, and reassure, but she could see his wide eyes were still swimming and full of fear.

 

“What’s your name?” she asked gently when Oin had smeared ointment over his battered feet and replaced the bandages, saying he would return with a meal and some tea.

 

“Fion,” he replied.

 

“Fion,” she repeated. “I have to leave you now. I know of some who will be very relieved to hear you’re awake.”

 

“The dwarves? The dwarves who found me?” His voice had a tone of panic in it and Meron tried hard to inject a soothing tone into her own voice as she replied.

 

“Yes, they among others. Don’t worry, the whole city does not know of your presence here.” This was not strictly true – the whole of Erebor had piled out of the Blessed Green feast in the Banquet Hall, aghast as they watched Fili and Dwalin carry the escaped slave’s limp form into the Halls of Healing.

 

“You’re safe,” she reiterated as Oin came into view, a tray of bread, chicken stew and a steaming bowl of what smelled like butternut soup in his hands. “I’ll be back.”

 

Fion didn’t reply or call after her as she walked outside and straight to the armoury. As she’d hoped, there she found Fili, Kili and Dwalin. They all turned as she entered, concerned and expectant looks on their faces.

 

“He’s awake,” she told them.

 

All three of them sighed in relief.

 

“Good,” said a deep voice to her left, and Meron almost jumped out of her skin. Thorin Oakenshield was standing there, Meron had missed him in the darkness. His face looked relieved, but his voice sounded firm. “Now we can question him.”

 

“No,” Meron said immediately. They all stared at her.

 

“He’s in a fragile state,” she elaborated.

 

Thorin still seemed affronted by her outburst. “Be that as it may, I will not tolerate danger from such scum around my city. The more and the sooner he can tell us the better.”

 

“I think we should wait,” Meron said stoutly. She would not beg or plead. “Just give him a few days to recover, then we can question him. He is still so stressed, he has endured too much already. I’m afraid that if we try to ask him to recall it to us so quickly he might break.”

 

Thorin’s eyes darkened as he regarded her. “Don’t make me regret recruiting you.”

 

“That is hardly fair,” Dwalin interrupted. Thorin rounded on him. “And you would instead accept such impertinence?”

 

“I think she’s right,” Fili interjected. He held Thorin’s angry gaze steadily as he continued. “If we allow him just a few days, he will be more relaxed with us: he won’t be leaving us anyway for months, haven’t you seen the state of him? We must let him trust us; if we treat him with kindness he will surely be more willing to share with us the information he’s got. He may fear retribution if they ever come across him again.”

 

“I think she knows what she’s talking about,” Kili said quietly.

 

“We don’t even know where he comes from!”

 

“Nor will we if we set upon him like a pack of angry dogs,” Fili replied evenly.

 

“Very well,” Thorin finally consented. “We shall wait. I hope that I may see him though?” He directed the second part of his sentence to Meron, an icy undertone entering his voice.

 

“Yes,” Meron said.

 

“I can see you’re protective over him, and I know why,” Kili murmured to her after the others had all left the armoury, Thorin leaving a miffed haughtiness in his wake. “But I wouldn’t advise crossing Thorin Oakenshield for his sake again.”

 

“But you’re right,” she hissed. “I _do_ know what I’m talking about.”

 

As it turned out, they did not need to wait. Meron was jolted awake as a loud scream rent the air that night. She jumped out of the chair where she had been dozing and grabbed Fion’s arm, which was flailing as he yelled.

 

“Stop! Fion, wake up, it’s only a nightmare!” His eyes snapped open and they looked wild as he laid eyes on the dam beside him.

 

“Don’t take me back! You don’t know what they’ll do to me!”

 

“You’re safe now,” she reminded him patiently if for the umpteenth time.

 

“They’re so cruel! _So cruel!_ And cunning!”

 

“I know, I know…”

 

“You don’t know what they’ll do to you!”

 

Meron stopped. “Do to us?”

 

“They were planning an attack on Erebor,” Fion whispered. “They’ll be back. I know it. They’ll come, pretending they’re friends. But they’ll come to find _me_. And then, they’ll take anyone else they can get their hands on!”

 

A fist clenched around Meron’s heart. “Are you sure of this?” she asked, trying to keep her voice steady.

 

“They spoke of it openly around us. Their fatal mistake; maybe that’s why they were looking for me. They knew that if they let me get away that I would find you, that I would tell you!”

 

Meron yelled for Oin to wake Thorin and Dwalin, and though it was the middle of the night, they stood by Fion’s bed and listened gravely as he repeated what he had just told Meron.

 

“Will they know we’ve found you?” Thorin asked.

 

Fion shook his head, his eyes raging with fear and desperation. “I don’t know… I don’t know. I – I left some shreds of my clothing,” he whispered. “And smeared them with blood… and left them somewhere I hoped they’d find them. I hoped they’d think me dead.”

 

“But we have no way of knowing,” Dwalin growled and Thorin nodded his agreement.

 

“We must keep you a secret,” Thorin declared firmly. “Send out scouts. Day and night. We must ensure their safety at all costs, but we must know the second men venture within fifty miles of this place. No one must leave.”

 

Erebor went into lockdown. Heeding Fion’s stories that most of the dwarrows were caught within miles of leaving home, the gates were locked, preventing entry for anyone save for groups of scouts, who moved primarily at nightfall. It was with a thrill of fear and dread that a group returned, bearing the news that they had seen fires among the foothills, and closer investigation confirmed that it was indeed the caravan.

 

The next day two unarmed men dressed as weary travellers appeared at the gate. They claimed to be lost, and were seeking refuge for a few days.

 

“They’re looking for _me_!” Fion whimpered when Meron brought him the news.

 

“They won’t find you. You’re to be moved to one of the secret caverns under the city,” she told him.

 

“You – you didn’t let them in?!” Fion’s eyes were wide and terrified.

 

“We had to, how else could we do so without rousing suspicion?”

 

Fion clutched her. “They’ll be _looking_. You have to attack them – tonight!”

 

“We can’t launch an attack tonight!” she hissed. “Are you mad?”

 

“Why not? So you can allow them more time to steal your children and spy on you?” Fion hissed.

 

That struck a nerve. And Meron could see he had a point.

 

……

 

“Tonight?” Dwalin roared. "That is Fion's suggestion," Meron repeated. “And how does he propose that?”

 

“We don’t know when they’re planning their own attack,” she persisted. “It must be best to be the first to strike! Otherwise who knows – the intruders may return tomorrow with all the information they need.”

 

“And how do you suggest we do this?” Dwalin growled. “It's not possible. We have made no backup, no strategy. It is already getting dark, we don’t have the time to plan this out!”

 

Before Meron could defend her proposal, Kili did it for her.

 

“We have two of them under our roof,” he interjected. “That means there are two fewer of them down there. They clearly are unaware that we know about them. We can hold the two here hostage and attack the caravan when it’s dark. It’ll take them by surprise.”

 

Meron hadn’t thought of that, she reminded herself to thank Kili later for fuelling her argument.

 

There was a long pause. Dwalin and Thorin glanced at eachother, an entire conversation passing through their eyes alone. Kili and Meron waited with bated breath; _please_ , Meron begged mentally, _please…_

 

“How soon can you arrange an offensive?” Thorin asked Dwalin, so quickly and in such a low voice that the others almost missed it.

 

“We’ll need to round up troops. But we should be able to in time for tonight.”

 

“Good. And arrange for guards to be outside the rooms of our _guests_ ,” Thorin uttered the word with venom. “They are to go nowhere.”

 


	7. A dish best served cold (Part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bloody battle and a new direction for Meron

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 2...
> 
> again, apologies if my battle-writing sounds ridiculous!

They were excessively foolish, Meron thought. Leaving only one person on watch. Such amateurs. These were not clever, calculated criminals, more likely brutes hired by the master of Laketown to do his dirty business; they were pitiful.

 

But nothing changed the fact that they were monsters, bastard _swine_ who dared think of dwarrows inferior, dare chain them up like beasts and use them as slaves.

 

She felt no qualms about killing them in cold blood.

 

“Ready,” she heard Kili’s whisper. “Draw… aim… release!”

 

The twang of four dwarrow arrows, from archers concealed in the trees, sounded; the lookout had barely time to look up, panicked, before an arrow buried itself in his neck.

 

His scream woke the others, several of whom woke screaming, as arrows burrowed into their chests and limbs. The rest jumped up, shielding their heads with their arms and sprinting for their weapons as, with a battle-cry, a deluge of armoured dwarrows flooded into their clearing.

 

Meron fired as many arrows as she could before the fighting became too thick, raising the risk of hitting a fellow dwarrow rather than a foe. Meron saw Fili in the throng, taking down twice as many with his twin swords. Kili had already left his post in the trees and was fighting near him, as skilled with a blade as he was with a bow. As she jumped down the branches to join them, she saw more men charging into the fight from the forest. The sight of them gave her a nasty jolt; they were not yet outnumbered, but how many more men had been hiding in the trees?

 

Meron drew her sword and began racing around the clearing towards the chained-up dwarrows; there were around thirty of them, now all on their feet and they stared wide-eyed at the battle commencing in front of them. With dismay Meron saw that most of them were bound by metal shackles, leaving no chance of her cutting their bonds and telling them to run to safety.

 

A man came charging towards her, a hunting knife raised in his hand. She took him down easily, only to have to immediately parry another blade that cut through the air towards her, then another, and another. With horror, she realized: the men were trying to get at the imprisoned dwarrows, probably to kill them, thus rendering their assault futile.

 

“We’ve got to protect the prisoners!” she shouted as Dwalin’s hammer swung into the man currently attacking her, breaking his ribs with a horrible crack. “They’re trying to kill them!”

 

Dwalin barked a few orders at some helmeted figures, who surrounded the group of chained dwarrows. Their attack was coming thick and fast and it was all Meron could do to parry the blades raining down on her as she fought to strike a fatal blow herself.

 

There were grunts and shouts, screaming all around, but a particular high-pitched wail caught her attention. She glanced around as best she could, kicking her attacker in the shins and smashing the back of his head with the pommel of her sword, glancing over his bent back to see one of the men, his arms around a dwarf child, dragging her away and into the darkness.

 

“ _No!”_ Meron didn’t think twice, she tore a knife out of her belt and flung it with all her might. It sank into the back of the man’s neck with an explosion of blood and he fell, taking the child down with him. The child’s scream grew louder.

 

“ _Meron_!” Meron heard a loud voice call her name and she turned as a man slammed his fist into the side of her head. Dazed, she felt herself soaring through the air, her helmet, several sizes too big, flew off her head as she landed hard on her back. The man stood over her, raising a large rock in his hand.

 

Suddenly Kili had thrust his sword deep into the man’s side. He grabbed her arm and pulled her up.

 

“Are you alright?”

 

The truth was that the world was spinning and Meron felt slightly nauseous. “Fine,” she replied through gritted teeth.

 

“Take the dwarrows. They’re in too much danger here. They can walk, can’t they? Get them out of the clearing and into the woods, stay with them and make sure nobody follows you. This will be over soon, go!”

 

Meron nodded, and hurried over to where the dwarrows were, huddling together, though a few had started lunging punches at the men closest to them. Meron grabbed the large rock still clenched in the hand of her attacker, now bleeding and groaning on the ground, and smashed the padlock attaching the chains around the trunk of a tree.

 

“Can you walk?” she asked the dwarrowdam at the head of a procession, who nodded and yelled at the others to follow. Meron grabbed the chains and led them into the thicker trees, where the firelight in the clearing wouldn’t touch them. Holding the chains and leading them this way made her feel sicker, but she knew she had to do it to keep them safe.

 

Only a few of the men seemed to have noticed, and their shouts of warning to the others were quickly cut off as dwarrow soldiers descended upon them. The noise of the fighting was soon drowned out as Meron led the shuffling dwarrows through bushes and thicket. She ducked down and examined the shackles chaining them together. Mercifully their hands were free, though most of them were clutching their arms around themselves, shaking with cold.

 

“Who has the keys?” she demanded.

 

“A man… we don’t know his name…” one of the dwarrows replied in a shaky voice.

 

“What does he look like?” Meron snapped.

 

“Bald… long nose… he’s got them around his belt on a chain.”

 

Meron looked at one of the soldiers with her, his face concealed behind the visor of his helmet. “Find the man.”

 

The dwarf nodded and ran back to the clearing. Meron felt restless, her head was still pounding and her stomach boiling with vomit threatening to spill over, but she could still distantly hear the sounds of fighting and longed to be _there_ , making sure the others were safe. She prayed they were; if they were not, well, this attack had been her idea, their deaths would be on her head…

 

Suddenly she remembered the child, _the dwarfling_ she had seen being carried off into the darkness and was probably even still now, trapped under the man’s body as his life bled out of him; looking around, she saw that all of the dwarrows she had brought with her, none were dwarflings.

 

“Were there any dwarflings among you?” she demanded.

 

“Yes,” a dwarf with haggard cheeks and fading red hair spoke up. “They kept them in the wagon.”

 

“Where is the wagon now?” Adrenaline in Meron’s body was clouding her vision but she fought for control and patience.

 

“They kept it away from them, in the forest, said the dwarflings made too much noise. They left a few guards with them though.”

 

That would have explained where those men who had ran in from the forest that Meron had seen earlier had come from. In seconds she was running back to that tree, following the direction that they came.

 

It was deathly silent out here, apart from the continuing distant noise of the fighting in the forest. The quiet made her blood run cold. Maybe… could they have slaughtered the children at the first sound of an attack?

 

A ragged moan broke from Meron’s lips and suddenly, a whimper. Meron whipped around, searching desperately in the blackness with her blind eyes, wishing for a torch.

 

“I’m a friend!” she called out in Khuzdul, and she heard soft sobs coming from somewhere on her left. She followed the noise and felt relief as her hands felt cold metal, she reached through the gaps in the bars to touch tiny shoulders, soft curls.

 

“I’ll get you out of here,” she told them, giving her eyes a few minutes to adjust to the lack of light. “We’ve come to save you.”

 

The children still didn’t speak. She realised they must have been frozen with terror. She scrabbled on the ground for another rock and started smashing at the padlock on the door of the wagon, rising panic whining inside her as it did not budge.

 

“I’m coming back, I promise,” she assured the dwarflings, stumbling back to the clearing. She had to find the man with the keys, she couldn’t believe it, dwarflings, some of them probably mere infants, kept in a cage like animals…

 

She heard someone crashing through the forest ahead of her, heavy breathing and relief washed through her as she recognised a familiar voice. “Meron!”

 

“Kili, I’ve found the dwarflings,” she panted, seeing the figure ahead of her stop abruptly, trying to locate her voice in the darkness. “They’re in the wagon, that wagon we saw, its got a lock on it and I can’t break it but I know who has the key. Is everything over?” She strained her ears but could only hear voices, the occasional calling out from the clearing.

 

“The fight is over,” Kili confirmed. “They’re unlocking the dwarrows as we speak.”

 

Anger flared in Meron. “They can _wait_! The children are more important.”

 

Suddenly she remembered. “Kili we’ve got to find the dwarfling, I saw one being carried away, I hit him with a knife and he went down but the young one will still be there –“

 

“Don’t worry, we found her,” Kili interrupted, finally locating her in the darkness and gripping her shoulders. “She’s being taken care of.”

 

Light suddenly appeared, and a dwarf ran to Kili’s side, holding a lit torch and a ring of rusty keys. “We’ve released the dwarrows.”

 

“Good. Go to Dwalin and ask him what he needs help with.” Kili took the torch and the keys from the dwarf and followed Meron until the firelight glinted on harsh metal bars. Eyes set in dirty, tear-streaked faces glittered out from the shadows.

 

“You’re safe now,” Meron crooned in a shaky voice as she unlocked the door and it swung open.

 

The dwarflings were still terrified, but some of the older ones, taking courage at seeing members of their own kind, took the hands Meron and Kili offered them and climbed out of the wagon, dragging the younger ones with them. There were around ten dwarflings altogether, and they huddled in a bunch, holding hands tightly as Meron and Kili led the way back to the clearing, now overrun with dwarrows, some sitting on the ground, too fatigued or injured to stand, others piling the bodies of men on top of eachother. The ground was interspersed with puddles of blood and the air smelled metallic.

 

“How many did we lose?” Meron asked the question she’d been dreading to utter ever since she’d heard the battle was over.

 

“None,” Kili replied. “A lot injured, but none we can’t save.” Meron could have fainted with relief.

 

Meron tried to steer the dwarflings away from the gruesome sight, but the cries of parents suddenly rent the air as dwarrows rushed at them, dwarflings bursting into tears as they were swept into the arms of their mothers or fathers.

 

Some of the dwarflings hung back, as though spooking from the outcries of emotion; Meron’s heart broke. They were clearly the orphans, those who didn’t have parents, for whatever reason.

 

Meron looked around to find the dwarfling girl she had seen earlier; she spotted her, nestled in a blanket and wrapped in a pair of arms. Behind them was Fili, looking extremely concerned. The dwarf holding the dwarfling visored helmet had cast aside his visored helmet, it lay on the ground next to them and Meron recognised it as the dwarf she had ordered to find the keys; curly red hair clouding around the face of – no, not a dwarf, a dwarrowdam…

 

“Aliyah!” Kili exclaimed.

 

Aliyah shot him a warning look as the dwarfling in her arms jumped, startled. “Don’t shout. They’re already in shock.”

 

“You were fighting?” Kili demanded incredulously.

 

Aliyah glared at him. Fili breathed heavily through his nose, jaw clenched.

 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, with the air of continuing a fraught, one-sided conversation.

 

“Because I knew you’d stop me and I had to help.” Aliyah looked up at him with unrelenting eyes. “You said it yourself, any extra help would be welcomed.”

 

“Yes, extra help, but that does not include my wife and the mother of my children! Fighting is not a game, don’t you realise what danger you put yourself in? What if you’d been lost, what if I’d been lost too and our children would be –“

 

“Orphans,” Meron cut across him. “Of course she realises the implications of her actions, what do you take her for, some kind of idiot?”

 

“Meron,” Kili said warningly, but Meron continued, not caring that she was speaking to the Heir of Durin. “With all due respect, I think your wife showed great bravery. There is no point quoting the ‘what ifs’, we are all alive and our enemy is dead. Your own brother was here, and you do not chastise him though he has a daughter himself! Just because she is a _dam_ you should not doubt her capabilities to defend herself as well as you in battle!”

 

Fili looked taken aback. “How can you say that when it was I who recruited you?”

 

Meron immediately felt guilty. She wasn’t sure why she was raging like this, she supposed something in the way he said ‘fighting is not a game’ that had struck a nerve, as though he thought that dams didn’t understand, as if they could never be taken seriously as soldiers because they never took battle seriously themselves. “Besides, she fought well,” she continued tartly. “I saw her take down two men with one cut of her blade, then trip another so he fell on his own companion’s hunting knife.”

 

Fili turned to Aliyah, looking impressed. “Is this true?”

 

It was nothing of the sort – Meron had made it up on the spot. But Aliyah glanced at her and nodded. She shifted the beautiful burden in her arms and looked into her dirty face, still stained with the fear that had yet to drain out of her and whispered, “We’d best be taking everyone home.”

 

Aliyah’s motherly tone sounded so out of place given her current attire and their surroundings that Kili could almost have laughed.

 

“Agreed,” he said. He turned and crossed the clearing to find Dwalin, Meron following him. “Orders?” he asked.

 

Dwalin brushed his hands together. “Everyone is coming back to Erebor,” he said. “Though I think we need to rest here for an hour or so to get up our strength. Could you go back to Erebor and tell Oin to rouse some more healers and prepare beds in the Halls of Healing. He’ll be receiving a lot of patients later tonight.”

 

Kili nodded and was about to leave when a jerk of Dwalin’s head stopped him.

 

“It appears Aliyah was not our only miscreant tonight.”

 

Kili and Meron looked around where Dwalin was gesturing with his chin; now all of the dwarrows had taken off their helmets, they could see that several were dams, their figures having been indiscernible from dwarfs in their male armour. Meron felt a swell of surprised pride inside her.

 

“They have all been training in secret, it appears. They fought well. As did you.” When Meron looked back at Dwalin, she saw his eyes were boring into hers, the expression in them not unkind.

 

“Thank you.” Meron gave a stiff bow to show her gratitude.

 

“And I think you have made quite a point, as have these ladies.” Dwalin said, gesturing. Meron blushed a little; she hadn’t realised Dwalin had heard her outburst to Fili.

 

“Which is why I propose a new direction.” Meron and Kili exchanged a glance, reading their own confusion in eachother’s faces. “I am suggesting the formation of a dwarrowdam infantry. And I think it’s you we need to lead them.”

 

Kili heard Meron’s breath catch.

 

“I will have to discuss this with the King, of course. But would you be willing, should he agree?” Kili thought Dwalin sounded very formal; the words sounded alien on his tongue and Kili suppressed a smile – he had none of his brother Balin’s natural diplomacy.

 

“I would be honoured to,” Meron said in a voice that sounded as if all the breath had been pulled from her body.

 

“Very good. Now off to Erebor with you, and send my message to Oin.” They both bowed, turned and began the hike back to the city gates.

 

They were both quiet.

 

“Your first battle,” Kili said finally.

 

“Yes.”

 

“You were right about attacking tonight. Caught them completely off-guard. And you did well. Really.”

 

Meron made a face. “I wish I’d been there for more of it. I was weak after I went down, I was a useless fighter.”

 

“A good soldier knows when he is not at his strongest,” Kili told her wisely. “Even if you couldn’t fight, you were still intensely useful. You were right, they were trying to kill the captured ones. After you led them to safety, it was all we could do to slay them before they got to you. Although their single-mindedness at that point only made it easier to take them down,” he ruminated. After a few seconds silence, he asked, “How do you feel?”

 

“Empowered,” Meron answered finally. She touched the scars on her wrist, almost subconsciously. She knew in the battle she had been fuelled by those scars, blazed with memories. These of course, were not the same men who she had encountered all those years ago; it was likely those men were long dead, man’s puny lifespan being what it was. Nonetheless, she had pictured her captors faces’ on every man she had slain, taken pleasure in taking them down, making her sword sing with their cries of death and taste the bitterness of their blood. Revenge, she supposed, was a dish best served cold. And oh, it had been sweet.

 


	8. The Camping Trip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The slavers are defeated – the two being held hostage in Erebor have been thrown into prison – the enslaved dwarrows have been healed and gone back to their home towns (all accompanied by an armed guard) – the dwarflings orphaned by the slavers have all been adopted – and now life has a chance to go back to normal. 
> 
> Ish.

 

“Adad! _Adad! I’VE GOT ONE!_ ”

 

Kíli’s head whipped around at the sound of his daughter’s gleeful shout. He crashed through the bushes and ran over to where she stood on the stony riverbank, pulling with all her might on the rod clutched in her hands. The expression on her face could only be described as jubilant.

 

“You’ve got one?” Kíli repeated, astounded. To be truthful, he hadn’t expected Míyah to actually _catch_ a fish, he just wanted to keep her occupied while he found a good spot in the woods nearby to set up camp. Míyah had been begging for months for him to allow her to come hunting with him, and now that it was spring, he had finally decided that the weather was pleasant enough and she was old enough to start learning. He had never been against the idea of bringing Míyah with him – hunting was a valuable skill and he knew she was dying to learn – but after seeing the slavers so close to Erebor, Kíli felt especially protective over his only child and uneasy about bringing Míyah into even the slightest danger. They hadn’t gone far, somewhere only about half a day’s trek away, but Míyah’s eyes were wide as saucers as she gazed at the wilderness she didn’t realise lay just beyond the threshold of the city.

 

A rustling sounded and Meron materialised out of a shrub just behind Míyah. “There’s a cave near here,” she told Kíli. “It’s a good size for us to spend the night.”

 

Kíli nodded at her and grabbed Míyah’s rod before it flew into the water, regardless of her whines of “ _Da_ , I can _do it…”_ He was shocked by the force of the tugging on the other end of the line. “Aule, Míyah, it feels like you caught a shark!” Kíli began wheeling back the string, and the heavy thing came closer and closer.

 

“I can see it!” Míyah cried. “It’s _there_ , it’s thrashing in the water!”

 

With a final heave, Kíli thrust the rod upwards, tumbling backwards with the force of his pull. A fat, furious fish fell onto his chest, thrashing wildly as Míyah crowed with joy. Kíli grabbed the creature’s head, closing his fingers over its flapping gills. The fish gasped desperately, flailing for a few more valiant seconds before stilling.

 

Míyah beamed.

 

Meron was almost doubled up, howling with laughter as Kíli gracelessly made his way back onto his feet, brushing bracken off his backside. He glared haughtily at her. “Haven’t you ever caught a fish before?” he said rudely, then remembered he had to keep his manners in front of his daughter.

 

Meron grinned at him wickedly. “You should see yourself. Come on!”

 

Not that he and Meron weren’t, well, _friends_ of sorts after their escapade with the slavers. It was true that they were spending more time together without Fíli’s help and they were learning to work well together, having reached a kind of mutual understanding. Kíli wasn’t entirely sure why he had asked Meron to come with him, but he knew it could never hurt to have another set of eyes, another sword and bow. But then again, maybe he was just being paranoid.

 

He certainly didn’t invite Meron along just for her company. He had half-hoped she would be able to help him control Míyah, who was almost feral with excitement at finally being allowed to come out hunting with her father.

 

“Míyah, this is Meron,” he had introduced them. Meron had stared down at the dwarfling, something unreadable in her eyes that, if Kíli didn’t know better, he would have identified as fleeting panic; his hopes that Meron would be able to help as a second chaperone to Míyah died instantly.

 

……

 

They ate fresh fish for dinner, Míyah watching and listening intently as Kili explained to her how to gut and clean a fish. Míyah had also helped Kili catch a few rabbits earlier in the day and her joy and exultation at her achievements almost made Kili regret that this was to be such a short trip.

 

Kíli took the first watch.

 

“Don’t let me sleep for more than four hours,” Meron warned him. Kíli nodded superciliously.

 

“Alright, alright, go to sleep now.”

 

Míyah hugged her da and he gave her a kiss before setting out her bedroll.

 

“Can’t I be closer to the fire? It’s cold,” Míyah pouted.

 

“If you’re too close you might roll into it,” Kíli pointed out.

 

Meron had laid out her bedroll next to Míyah’s without a word and settled down. Kíli finished tucking Míyah in and kissed her forehead lightly. Meron grinned facetiously.

 

“What about me?”

 

Kíli grimaced in reply and Meron fought off a snicker as she closed her eyes and tried to sleep. ‘Tried’ being the operative word; she could sense the dwarfling’s restlessness beside her, and soon enough she could feel her agitated tossing and exasperated sighs.

 

“What’s wrong?” she whispered eventually. The dwarfling huffed.

 

“I’m cold. And the ground is stony,” she grumbled.

 

“That’s camping for you,” Meron laughed quietly, opening her eyes a crack and meeting the dwarfling’s frustrated green eyes, though they were black in the dying firelight. She thought back to the first time she and Kíli had met and decided to take a leaf out of his book. “Come here,” she offered, shifting a little so there was more space on her bedroll. “If you double up the bedrolls, the ground won’t feel so hard. And we’ll also have double blankets so you’ll be warmer.”

 

Míyah hesitated. Doubt surged in her shadowy eyes. “I don’t bite,” Meron told her.

 

There was another beat of silence. “Yes you do,” Míyah whispered. “You bite because you’re a warg, and I am Thorin Oakenshield, so you had better watch out!”

 

Meron growled in an appropriately warg-like way and mock tackled the dwarfling. Míyah let out a war cry, ruining the effect as she giggled. Míyah pretended to stab her with a stick and Meron howled in wolfish agony as she fell back against the blankets, clutching her mortal would.

 

“Shh!” The two of them lay still as Kíli appeared in their line of vision. He looked confused, glancing around as if to ascertain where the sound he had heard had came from, and Míyah was not the only one biting back silent laughter. Kíli, deciding there was no danger, and thinking he may possibly have imagined the sounds of wargs, trudged back to the rock he had been perching on earlier.

 

“We have to sleep now,” whispered Meron and she felt Míyah nod her head in agreement. She shifted closer and Meron wrapped her covers around both of them, basking in the extra warmth. When Kíli shook her awake four hours later, she had to gently prise the dwarfling away from her side as she stood up to take her turn of the watch.

 

……

 

They got back to Erebor at around noon. Kíli had been surprised yesterday to see Míyah clinging happily to Meron’s hand and chattering happily at her. When they reached the gate and the grand entrance hall beyond, Kíli crouched down in front of his daughter and smiled at her.

 

“I’m so proud of you. You’ve learned so much and you did magnificently,” he told her, pressing a kiss to the end of her nose. Miyah affixed a nonchalant expression onto her face and pretended to wipe off the kiss as soon as her father drew away. Laughing, Kíli ruffled her hair, knowing she was secretly glowing with pride under his praise, then bade her go find Dís and show her what they had brought back.

 

“How old is she?” Meron asked, watching Míyah sprint away happily, swinging the sack of rabbits as if they weighed nothing.

 

“Eleven years now,” Kíli replied. They turned and began making their way towards the armoury to put away their weapons. “She seems to have taken to you well.”

 

Meron coloured a little and made a sound of assent, then decided to change the subject. “Why do you call her mother Dís in front of her?”

 

Kíli laughed. “Dís is not her mother! She’s _my_ mother. Honestly, know you nothing of the royal bloodlines?” he tutted. “You should have paid more attention during history lessons.”

 

They had reached the armoury by now and Kíli turned his back to hang up his sword, missing the scowl Meron shot at him. She neglected to mention that her family had been too poor to have her educated properly growing up.

 

“Where is Míyah’s mother?”

 

“She died,” Kíli replied softly. He turned round and found himself faced with Meron’s shocked, stricken face.

 

“So young,” Meron murmured. “I’m so sorry.”

 

“It’s alright,” he told her quietly. “It’s been years now. She hardly remembers her. Míyah’s been so loved all her life, she barely knows someone else is missing.” Kíli frowned as he examined a broken strap on his quiver of arrows.

 

Meron couldn’t think of anything else to say. As Kíli scrutinised his quiver, she pulled out her hunting knife and began washing it in the sink in the corner.

 

“I didn’t expect you to be married,” Meron said abruptly, then cursed herself for thinking out loud so carelessly.

 

“Why? Do I strike you as an eternal bachelor like my uncle? I’m not that old.” Kíli laughed lightly.

 

“N-no,” Meron backtracked hastily.

 

“Well, you strike me as one. A bit old to not be married aren’t you?”

 

Meron flushed. “You sound like my parents.”

 

“Then again, I suppose it’s not for everyone. Some people just aren’t cut out for that stuff.”

 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Meron demanded, hand almost slipping against the blade of her knife. She cursed herself for her stupidity.

 

“You know, marriage, dwarflings.” Kíli chuckled. “The way you acted around Míyah at first, it was as if you’d never met a dwarfling before.” Kíli grinned. “Have you even courted anyone?”

 

“Don’t think of me as so _green_ ,” Meron snarled.

 

"You're too green to know the meanings of life," Kili teased. “I bet you’ve yet to even have your first kiss.”

 

"I have done more - much more than kiss someone!" Meron replied heatedly.

 

"Mm-hm," Kili hummed in assent. Meron did not miss his disbelieving tone.

 

"I'll prove it!" she challenged and before she even knew what she was doing, Meron had grabbed the scruffs of Kili's beard and forced her lips onto his.

 

It was blinding. It felt like one of Gandalf's fireworks had erupted inside his stomach and was sending fiery tingles down every nerve in his body. His mouth fought back instinctively, invitingly. The kiss lasted a few seconds longer than either of them expected.

 

Meron released him. "Did that feel like a kiss from someone who had never kissed anyone before?" she snapped.

 

"No," was all Kíli could think of to say. He simply stared at her. This was strange, it occurred to him: usually things changed after you kissed someone. But it felt so easy. It was as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. As if it was right, natural.

 

Meron tried to pretend she hadn't felt a jolt in her navel, a searing _something_ in the very fibre of her being. She held his gaze until Kili finally broke into a grin.

 

"Point made," he told her, shoving her gently with his elbow. He busied himself with fixing the broken buckle on the strap his quiver, and Meron was glad of his distraction as she finally released the breath she had been holding for how long now, and stopped trying to quell the heat rising in her neck and cheeks. She steeled herself.

 

"I'm due to be married," she blurted out.

 

"Oh?" Kili's tone was calm, unsurprised.

 

"Someone in the Iron Hills. He'll be coming to Erebor soon to seal the agreement with my parents. His name is Borek,” she added for good measure.

 

She wasn’t sure how she expected him to react, or how she wanted him to react. She wasn’t expecting the twinge of sudden pain (or was it guilt?) that hit her as Kíli straightened up, face oddly blank as he asked, “When’s the wedding?”

 

“As yet undecided,” Meron half gasped, finding herself strangely out of breath.

 

“You don’t sound over the moon about it,” Kíli remarked, still in that infuriatingly placid tone of voice.

 

Meron wasn’t sure what to say. “Borek Gunshelf,” was all she could manage. It was true – her agreement to the marriage was more a result of pressure from her brothers to settle down and do what other dwarrowdams her age did and her desire not to cause her parents any unnecessary worry over her wayward ways. She had met Borek several times, and at first she had felt nothing towards him, only a strange apathy when their eyes met and their hands touched. So this was who she would be spending the rest of her life with. Isn’t it funny how the fairy-tales and children’s stories amplified this to such grandiose emotions.

 

“You should be happy. I hear Borek is from a good family, and a handsome dwarf.” Kíli’s words came to her as if swimming on tides of air.

 

“I suppose?” Meron didn’t mean for her voice to rise up at the end of her sentence, making it sound like a question. She pictured him in her mind – rivers of raven-black hair cascading from his chin and scalp, a beard braided neatly and entwined with red-gold beads. He dressed well and had strong hands, strong legs. She assumed he was handsome.

 

Kíli pulled on the strap of the quiver in his hands, testing the buckle. “Well, that’s fixed,” he said sounding satisfied. He hung it up on a hook on the wall and shouldered his pack. “I’d best be getting home. And so should you, we need to catch up on some sleep.”

 

Meron couldn’t bring herself to speak, so nodded. Kíli grinned, in spite of the lead that had seemed to settle in the bottom of his stomach, and couldn’t resist leaning over to knock foreheads with the dwarrowdam before sending her a cheery goodbye and strolling out of the armoury towards the baths. He couldn’t help but feel that finally, he and Meron could count eachother as friends.

 


	9. Borek

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meron's betrothed is met... but complications also arise

 

Meron had known Borek for years now, and hadn’t at first minded when her parents put forward the idea of their marriage. Her immediate instinct had been to scream and shout, to fight tooth and nail for her freedom, to resist as hard as she could; she prepared herself to plead against becoming a wife, and insist that she would run away if they tried to make her marry.

 

But her resistance died in her throat before the first words of protest had even come out, died the instant she had looked into her parent’s worried, exhausted eyes. She was seventy (seventy-six, she corrected in her own head), and most of the other dwarrowdams her age were betrothed or even already married; even those who weren’t had long expressed an interest in starting a family or were courting. So Meron agreed, and that very night she had been taken to meet her prospective husband.

 

He hadn’t made a lasting impression. Meron’s opinion of him extended as far as ‘ _he wasn’t that bad’_. As long as he didn’t try to force her into wearing dresses or try to stop her hunting or training, she would be fine. Besides, he was a miner. His days would be spent under the ground, without the slightest idea what she would be doing above it.

 

She had only began to dislike Borek when she first saw him drunk, several weeks after they first met. His arrogance, already impressive at the best of times, swelled to make his company unbearable and he was soon challenging anyone who would listen and filling her ears with stories of his exploits. Meron was not amused to hear that many of these tales involved other dwarrowdams.

 

Meron was not a heavy drinker and it bothered her when his hands began groping. She told him to wait, asked if they could do this somewhere more private. True to her word, when she managed to drag him out of the tavern, she allowed him to kiss her and run his hands along the sides of her body, cupping and squeezing, but stopped him when his wandering fingers began to try and hitch up the skirts of her dress. She told him she was unbroken and wanted to save it for until after they were married – this of course wasn’t strictly true, but Borek simply grunted in consent and continued to slaver her throat with open-mouthed, slobbery kisses.

 

And then Erebor was retaken and everything changed. Her parents were beside themselves with joy and before Meron could fully register what was happening, they had loaded their lives into a pony-drawn wagon and were making their way across the country to the Lonely Mountain alongside hundreds of other Durins’ folk. They started a farm and after a tough first year started selling produce at the market and to the royal kitchens. Borek seemed forgotten. Meron help but feel glad.

 

But now Borek’s father had sent a raven to her parents announcing his impending arrival in Erebor to visit some relatives, accompanied by Borek and inquiring after the position of their daughter Meron, whose hand they had discussed in marriage some fifteen years earlier. Borek remained a bachelor, but eager to continue his engagement and move to the city. Meron’s heart sank at the words, but she feigned happiness to Val and Merupe.

 

“What’s this then?” were Borek’s loud, laughing words upon seeing Meron waiting for him at the threshold of their small quarters, his ostentatious laugh booming as he slid off his pony and took in her short tunic, breeches and the quiver slung across her shoulder. “We can’t have this now, can we?”

 

Meron gave him a close-lipped smile and allowed him to lift her bodily into a tight hug that raised her feet off the ground and pressed a kiss onto her closed mouth.

 

“How now, wife? Not pleased to see me?” he asked and Meron affixed a coy expression onto her face.

 

“Of course not, love… It is only that… I am shy after not seeing you for so long.”

 

Borek laughed again and caught the back of her knees, lifting her into his arms.

 

“I believe we have fifteen years to catch up on!” he cried and Meron was helpless as he barrelled into the house and into her bedroom.

 

She managed to fend him off, sticking to her previous excuse that she wanted to wait until after the marriage ceremony, but Meron hoped he couldn’t hear her thundering heart or notice that the only thought in her mind the whole time he was with her was _Kíli_.

 

……

 

“Your beloved is here, is he not?” Kíli asked.

 

“Yes,” Meron replied stoutly. She tapped her foot impassively against the stone.

 

“Good,” was all Kíli could think of to reply.

 

Neither of them knew what to say for a few minutes.

 

……

 

The last few days could have been worse, Meron kept repeating to herself.

 

It wasn’t that she didn’t like bars or ale, but Borek seemed to have interest in little else. Oh, apart from bragging and attempting to persuade Meron to lie with him. His father, Babek, had found quarters for him and his son a few streets away (still too close for Meron’s liking), though Borek ate and slept at Meron’s parents’ house so often that she thought he might as well have moved in. He insisted on spending almost every evening together, unless Meron had a night shift, and almost every evening involved visiting one inn or the other. They followed an undeniable, boring pattern: Borek drank, Meron steadily grew more and more bored of his conversation, and he got randy enough that she couldn’t stop his pawing hands without snapping at him. She knew this wasn’t the ideal start for what would doubtless be a long and fruitful marriage, but she couldn’t help it. He also had a most annoying habit of calling her ‘wife’ or ‘ _yasith’_ , despite the fact that their parents hadn’t yet even arranged a date for the ceremony yet, which she constantly reminded him.

 

Things got worse when Borek announced his intentions to become a banker. Meron subtly tried to steer him away from this, trying to remind him what a good miner he was, with his big strong muscles and his sharp eyes, saying they would miss him sorely down in the mines.

 

In truth, she couldn’t give a damn about his talents or his valuable contribution to the miner community; what she feared was him undoubtedly trying to spend more time with her if he was above ground.

 

Her flattery was futile. Borek merely patted her ostentatiously on her head and said, “My poor wife, I wouldn’t expect you to understand – it’s not about the money or my talents, it’s about the _prestige_!”

 

Meron would have kicked him in frustration if she wasn’t so filled with dread.

 

……

 

As she feared, ever since he got his new job, Borek insisted on meeting her for lunch or in the afternoons. Meron usually managed to sidestep this obligation, blaming her need to help Vargal on the farm or her busy schedule in the King’s Guard.

 

“Why do you even work?” he mumbled darkly. “I earn plenty enough to support both of us. We could even start looking for our own place.”

 

“It would break Val and Merupe’s hearts to see me go,” Meron said quickly.

 

“Anyway… what kind of work is it? The _King’s Guard_? Hardly an appropriate profession for one like you. Usually it is warriors of skill and from good families who are selected to defend the city.”

 

“We’re arranging the construction of a female infantry,” Meron said dryly, choosing to ignore the slight on her parents, though it stung. “I am to be in charge of training them once we have found enough recruits.”

 

Borek snorted. “ _Dams_ in the army? What is the world coming to.”

 

Meron resisted the urge to punch him for the third time in ten minutes.

 

“There’s my supervisor,” she said quickly, spotting Dwalin crossing a road ahead. “He’ll be on his way to check on me, I’d best be going!”

 

……

 

Meron knew that Kíli and Borek meeting eachother eventually was inevitable, and though she dreaded it, even her worst fantasies couldn’t have done it justice when it finally happened.

 

The meeting hall door burst open and Meron, Dwalin and Kíli jerked in surprise, looking up from the map they had been poring over. Meron’s heart sank as Borek strode in.

 

“I’ve come to take my bride out to lunch,” he declared.

 

“Ah, so you are the famous beloved,” Kíli smiled, holding out his hand. “It’s a pleasure.”

 

“And you are?” Borek said rudely. Meron wanted to the stone floor to swallow her whole.

 

Kíli’s friendly smile did not falter, but his voice switched to a diplomatic tone, one that did not reveal his surprise at this dwarf’s lack of manners. “Kíli, son of Dis. Sister-son of Thorin Oakenshield.”

 

Borek took the hand Kíli was still valiantly holding out and shook it. “Borek, son of Babek,” he grunted. He released the hand and Meron did not miss the dirty look he shot at Kíli. “Let’s go.”

 

“I’m afraid Dwalin really can’t let me leave,” Meron began making excuses. “Really, we’re very busy planning new trails – “

 

“The trails can wait,” Dwalin said easily, pulling the map from beneath Meron’s grasping fingertips and rolling it up. “I’ll see you back here tomorrow and we can finish going through it.”

 

Kíli couldn’t read the look in Meron’s eyes. It was almost pleading.

 

“You heard him, it can wait til tomorrow.” Meron didn’t move for a second, and only when Borek grabbed her arm did she reluctantly turn and leave with him out of the double door.

 

“I wish you’d have let her stay,” Kíli said to Dwalin quietly.

 

Dwalin looked at him shrewdly. He seemed to guess the thoughts running through his mind as he said, slowly: “Don’t get involved, Kíli. It is none of our business. Although his _nerve_!” he seethed suddenly, cracking his knuckles ominously. “As if he didn’t recognise you! _Sister-son of Thorin Oakenshield_ indeed! _”_

 

Kíli laughed as he slapped Dwalin on the back. “You seem more outraged by the insult to my family line than I am!”

 

……

 

Meron wrenched her arm from Borek’s grip as soon as they were out of earshot.

 

“Why did you have to do that?” she hissed. Her sadness had turned, unsurprisingly, into ire. “Don’t you realise how _embarrassing_ that was, showing me up in front of the people I work with!”

 

Borek snorted. “Don’t kid yourself. You work _for_ them, though I’m sure they would prefer you to work _under_ them...” He laughed cruelly at his own joke.

 

Meron, growing more heated by the second, ignored him and continued angrily: “And _really_ did you have to be so rude? He is _Kíli Durin_ for Mahal’s sake, how could you pretend not to recognise him!”

 

“Watch your tongue,” Borek snarled, grabbing her chin suddenly and squeezing his fingers into her jaw, forcing her to face him, his dark eyes almost overwhelming. Meron was so shocked she couldn’t move. “Why, not even married and already a nag. I warn you now, no wife of mine will speak to me like that. _Slut_.”

 

Meron spat. It missed his eye and landed instead in his beard, peppered as always with ostentatious little gold plates that glimmered and swayed like those foil discs Vargal hung in his cherry trees to scare away the scavenging sparrows. Borek slowly wiped the spot it had hit with the cuff of his sleeve, his eyes never ceasing to bore menacingly into hers.

 

“If you’re quite finished,” he said coldly and released her. Meron let him walk a few paces ahead so he wouldn’t see her rubbing the sore spot on her jaw, wouldn’t see the hot, angry tears beginning to prickle in her eyes.

 

……

 

When they met the next day to continue their discussion, Meron struck Kíli as being very subdued. There was a cool, guarded, almost calculating look in her eyes, and when Borek showed up again, she went with him silently but reluctantly, jaw clenched. Kíli wanted to point this out to Dwalin again, but didn’t want Dwalin scolding him for poking his nose into other peoples’ business, or reminding him it was unwise to interfere.

 

Meron was asking Kíli to take her out to train more and more often. At first Kíli thought she needed the extra practise, but as he watched her he began to realise she was using it as an excuse to get some peace. Meron’s aim was impeccable and her technique with a bow was one to be marvelled at. He was yearning to ask her about Borek, why she was with him, how could she bear it, and, strangely, what he could do to help.

 

But he pushed these thoughts aside with a shake of his head every time they nagged at him, and reminded himself firmly that it wasn’t his business.

 

Harder to dispel was the thought that his feelings were completely out of place.

 

……

 

Meron thought Kíli had guessed her real reasons for asking for more archery practise – or at least part of them. She felt a bit bad about taking up so much of his presumably precious time, but she couldn’t help it. When she was with Kíli and the only sound was the thrum of bowstrings, the whistling of arrows through the air, and the soft thump as they buried themselves in the targets, it was inevitable that they would eventually start talking.

 

And it was so relaxing to talk to Kíli. It was strange, looking back to how she thought she had hated him at the beginning; now, though he still got under her skin at times, she couldn’t ignore how pleasant those afternoons were, or how much she looked forward to them when she was lying in bed next to a stinking, snoring Borek or doing tasks around the farm.

 

With dread, Meron began to recognise the symptoms: the swooping sensation she felt when she saw him, how her mind wandered to him more often than was entirely healthy, the way he could almost always make her smile (or grind her teeth in good-natured anger).

 


	10. Start of Secrecy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kili witnesses something, and he and Meron finally face the truth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> updates will be quite fast, hope you enjoy this chapter! Alternative title: In Which Shit Hits the Fan :)

Kíli was summoned for a last-minute dinner with his brother, Thorin, Dwalin and Bard. He didn’t mind the company, but his mind definitely wandered when they started discussing one of the pressing current issues, something about trade with the elves needing to be maintained in Dale despite Dale’s allegiance with the dwarves of Erebor… or something like that **.**

 

Fíli knew his brother was bored, and also noticed he wasn’t much help in the discussion. He excused him, and Kíli, eternally grateful, left.

 

As he meandered back to his chambers, Kíli heard low voices coming from a side road, and halted when he recognised an angry retort in a tone that sounded distinctly like Meron. He turned and squinted in the direction of the voices. Two figures were discernible from the light of a torch bracket further down the narrow alley, one of whom was definitely Meron. A male dwarf, hulking and huge, was standing before her, letting out a string of growled curses in Khuzdul. It occurred to Kíli that Borek was one of the tallest dwarfs he had ever seen; he towered over her, his voice growing ever-more slurred and threatening but Meron held her ground and spat at his feet. Borek grabbed her arm and raised a hand.

 

“Meron –“ Kíli began but in an instant she had brought her knee sharply into Borek’s groin and he fell back with a yelp of pain. She whirled around at the sound of Kíli’s voice and Kíli saw the glint of a knife in her hand.

 

“Get out of here,” she snarled. “Go away!”

 

Kíli saw the wild gleam in her eye, an expression he first saw on the first time they were scouting together and had come across the slavers. He knew that in this state, there was no point arguing with her.

 

Wordlessly, he turned and went back to his own chambers. He played with Míyah for a while after relieving Dís from her babysitting duties, then put her to bed. He was about to go to bed himself when a loud angry rapping almost shocked him out of his skin. He opened the door and was not entirely unsurprised to see Meron standing there.

 

“Why did you do that?” she demanded furiously, shoving him in the chest as she stormed over the threshold. “You should have known you would only make it worse! Are you even _aware_ of the _trouble you cause_?”

 

Kíli smarted at her words but said nothing. He quickly crossed the room and shut the door to Míyah’s bedroom.

 

“Keep your voice down,” he told her, his voice oddly calm. “I don’t want to wake Míyah.”

 

Meron looked as though she might dismember him, but her next words were uttered in a quiet hiss. “I don’t need your help. You only made it _worse_ , turning up and defending me like that. I can take care of myself very well without you, make no mistake.”

 

“Of that I am well aware,” Kíli replied coolly. “I’m sorry. I was just worried about you. It wasn’t intended as an insult.”

 

Meron was still glaring at him, but her shoulders seemed to sink a little as she almost relaxed. “Well… thank you for your concern,” she said at last, a little stiffly. “But there’s no need.” She blinked, trying to ignore the way her stomach had lurched pleasantly when he had said ‘ _I was worried about you_.’

 

“Is there anything else I should know before I make another foolish error?”

 

“No,” she replied shortly.

 

There was silence for a few moments, before Kíli glanced at the pipe in his hand. “Can I offer you something?” he asked, hating the feel of the unnaturally formal words leaving his mouth.

 

“Yes,” Meron decided. Kíli passed her the pipe and she took a long, inexperienced puff. Kíli couldn’t help but grin at the small, quickly stifled cough.

 

“Don’t smoke?”

 

“It’s fine,” she snapped, though Kíli decided the small wrinkle in her nose spoke otherwise. He crossed the room and opened Míyah’s door softly.

 

“Still sleeping,” he murmured. “That’s good.”

 

Meron suddenly felt a pang of guilt, and no small jab of shame.

 

“I’m sorry I shouted before,” she told him. Then, hesitantly: “May – may I see her?”

 

Kíli cracked the door open a little wider. Meron peeked in; the little dwarfling seemed swamped in the bed she lay in, almost out of sight behind the mounds of blankets and puffy pillows. A long strand of dark hair was tangled around the two fingers jammed tightly in her mouth.

 

Kíli quietly eased the door shut and went to sit down on his bed. Meron sat next to him, twisting her lips in the silence that stretched on.

 

“I take it your engagement is over then?” Kíli inquired finally, and Meron recognised the impassive, distant tone he always used whenever Borek reared his ugly head in their conversation. She gave a dry laugh.

 

“No, that’s just Borek. It’s not the first time I’ve ever pulled a knife on him.”

 

“Is – is that really what you want?” Kíli’s apathetic tone was infiltrated now by an unmistakeable twinge of regret. Meron’s heart skipped a beat. The words were worse than the pipeweed for making her head spin and her breath catch in her throat.

 

“I don’t know,” she sighed, looking at her fingers. “I don’t have much of a choice. I want to make my parents happy, they’ve done so much for me.”

 

At her words, Kíli felt his hands reaching out slowly, almost uncontrollably, towards her. He pushed back her sleeve, gently holding her hand with his own, and traced the scars around her wrist lightly with the tips of his fingers. Meron made a small, bitter sound, almost like a chuckle.

 

“Yes, that is what I meant,” she told him, looking at the top of his head, all she could see as his face was bent over the scars on her wrist.

 

Suddenly, Meron couldn’t control herself as she ducked down and pressed her lips to his own. Kíli started but returned the kiss. They could have been joined for hours.

 

Thoughts of Borek dissolved like ash in the wind as Meron pushed Kíli down on the blankets. She shivered slightly as his arms wound around her and tried kissing him again but Kíli pulled his face away. Her mind reeled at the sudden rush of humiliation and pain.

 

“Meron,” he murmured, apprehension strong in his voice. “Are you sure?”

 

“Aren’t you?” she replied quickly.

 

“Of course, but…” Kíli was distracted by Meron’s wince as his hands ghosted over her sides. He frowned, and lifted the hem of her shirt. Meron almost batted his hands away but realised it was too late. She watched Kíli’s face as he took in the sight; Borek’s fingers had left bruises when he grabbed her hips and pushed her against the wall.

 

“He’s got quite a grip,” she said awkwardly.

 

Kíli was silent for a few moments. “I hate to see him hurt you,” he whispered finally.

 

Meron _tsked_ quietly. “It would take more than a few bruises for him to hurt me. Not like you,” she added under her breath. 

 

Meron was going to try kissing him again but before she had a chance to, Kíli rolled her gently down next to him. He wound an arm around her, but Meron couldn’t help but think plaintively that it felt horribly _platonic_.

 

“Let’s just sleep,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”

 

“Don’t be,” Meron replied, trying not to choke on the solid lump that had formed in her throat.

 

She was glad at least that she was in Kíli’s arms – that way she could at least pretend for now that he loved her too and wasn’t just letting her sleep here because he felt _sorry_ for her, because he would feel guilty, even irresponsible for letting her go back to Borek now. She dreaded morning, when she would have to face them both, Kíli awkward and silent, Borek angry and undoubtedly demanding where she had been. She would have to lie and say she had stayed at a friend’s – and then have to fabricate a friend.

 

Despite her dark predictions of a sleepless night, Meron drifted off easily – after all, even horrible as the situation was, it felt so good, so right to be wrapped in Kíli’s arms, even if her heart was surely breaking. _Stupid stupid stupid_. Didn’t they used to say dwarrows only gave their heart once, and she’d given it to the wrong person, couldn’t she have at least tried to give it to the one she was going to marry?

 

Perhaps though, things didn’t work that way. Perhaps fate had already planned out who was going to be matched with who – but don’t be silly, how could that be? Besides, why would fate be so cruel in the case of dwarrows and dwarrowdams, when dwarrows outnumbered dams by odds of over two to one? She was _lucky,_ to be a dam, always guaranteed to find a partner; she was a _rarity_ , a _gem_ to be coveted and treasured…

 

Sleepy musings drifted sluggishly behind Meron’s eyes, she forgot them almost as soon as she thought of them. Like goldfish in a pond, they sank before they’d even properly surfaced, barely able to catch a glimpse before they were gone again...

 

And a dream. Who knew what depths of the night it was, she was laid down next to the body she loved, and Kíli was stirring, arms moving, pulling her closer, burying his face in her hair, sighing _her name_. A hand making its way to cup her jaw, to tilt her chin up, press warm lips there, felt her own fingers clenched around his wrist, felt the other bury in fine waves of hair, inky black in the sparse light of the moon making its way through the mist outside. Legs twisting, twining together, heat rising in her throat and her chest and the pit of her stomach, jolts of delicious excitement running down her every nerve, skin touching skin now, still the whispering of her name _, Meron, oh Meron_ every time their mouths parted for the barest second to gasp for oxygen, grab at the air like creatures dying, then back to tongues testing, teasing.

 

A finger brushed her closed eyes and she snapped them open, they had been blinking before but now she was alert, and _it wasn’t a dream_ , it was the same night she had fallen into bed with him and now he was… he was…

 

“Are you awake?” she gasped.

 

“What do you think?” he growled, and that shock of realism made Meron almost laugh out loud, great peals of the stuff that would have reverberated around the high stone ceiling if she’d set them free.

 

Both pairs of eyes open now, staring into eachother, both bottomless and black in ghostly moonlight faces. Unspoken words darting between them.

 

_What now?_

 

She supposed they both answered when they simultaneously moved forward, mouths joining roughly, fiercely. _Nothing will stop us now._

 

……

 

They started their routine.

 

During the day and in public they would barely speak, but maintained their façade as friendly comrades. Meron addressed Kíli as ‘your grace’ or ‘my prince.’ Whenever she could, Meron would sneak to Kíli’s chambers, using the excuse of a night shift or insomnia to take a late night stroll, and be gone by the next morning.

 

They took it slowly, pace by pace.

 

The first time they lay together, Kíli hesitated.

 

“Come on,” Meron breathed. She nudged him gently. “I’m not made of glass. I have done this before.” She reached up to kiss him, reassuringly. Kíli seemed relieved.

 

Meron gasped and Kíli immediately started soothing, frantically apologising.

 

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I thought you said this wasn’t your first time…”

 

“It’s not,” Meron gasped. _But it might as well be_ , she almost added, closing her eyes and savouring the sensations inside and around her. For the first time, Meron felt _fire_ , her body contorted beyond her control and she didn’t care, she gave into the wanting, the physical elation, her back arched, her core filled with crackling, and she felt like when she opened her mouth she would breathe fire like Smaug himself.

 

His eyes were like tunnels; they stretched endlessly on in their darkness, turning almost gold when the light hit them (maybe it was gold-sickness she had). She could see herself at the end of those tunnels, an explosion of visions shot rapidly through her mind before she could stop them – she and Kíli, making their vows to _eachother_ , Borek a distant memory; she and Kíli united, they made eachother strong; she and Kíli with an infant she recognised as their own…

 

It was then that she knew. Or at least knew for certain.

 

 


	11. I'm Astridr

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> shorter chapter, more revelations about Meron.
> 
> I've reached a point where I can say that this story will be 15 chapters long, so not far to go! most of it is written, just needs editing and when i post i will probably be posting 2 chapters at a time. There will be an epilogue in Part 3, which may or may not go further than that. But we'll see!

 

It was Meron's first time in love.

 

And it scared her.

 

And yet she couldn't stop it, could quell the urgency she felt, the need to be with him always, whether lying together or standing at his side in meetings or the armoury or the city gates, their elbows barely brushing. There was a reason they called it falling in love; it was like flying through the air, moving uncontrollably, like being dropped - but who knew if it was feathers or flames that lay at the bottom of this glorious abyss.

 

……

 

“Astridr,” she whispered at last.

 

Perhaps it had not been wise to lie so exposed in the open, even though it was only the two of them on patrol that night and there was no chance of any other dwarrows finding them, but the stars and the moonlight were too tempting. The silvery light bathed their bare bodies, still half-entwined as they sprawled on their scattered clothes. She found herself suddenly gulping, gasping for breath, hot tears coursing down her face and stinging her cheeks. Kíli wound his arm tighter around her.

 

“What?”

 

“Astridr,” she gasped. “I’m - my real name – is Astridr.”

 

Kíli cupped her face, feeling wetness on his fingers. He stroked her cheek, chasing the tears away and kissed her hard.

 

“You’re Meron,” he whispered firmly, echoing her own words back at her. “It’s who you are now.”

 

Meron’s breath hitched and remained uneven for a long while. Yes, she supposed. She was Meron. She was Meron and she was strong. And being next to this dwarf made her stronger.

 

It had been a long time since she had let any sliver of her vulnerabilities show; she usually never thought about it, regarded her past impassively, as if it had happened to someone else. She wasn’t sure what had sparked this outpouring, this catharsis and its physical reaction, her body quaking, lungs shivering as she fought to draw breath, hot tears burning her eyes.

 

She was restless in her sleep, uttering strangled sounds and twitching as though bad memories were playing out in the nightmares behind her lids. Kíli wrapped her in his arms until the dawn, shaking her awake when her dreams got too bad. He held her tighter and she held him back, and he couldn’t stop the feeling of bliss that rose within him, the sensation of utter belonging, something like a key fitting in a lock, two pieces slotting perfectly in place side-by-side.

 


	12. Cracks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keeping affairs secret is hard work.

 

Despite their secrecy, it seemed that trickles of their clandestine life were leaking through the cracks.

 

"Someone been keeping you up at night, brother?" asked Fíli teasingly, a half-hearted yawn stretching his brother’s lips for the fourth time in five minutes.

 

"Maybe," Kíli replied absently, hastily backtracking to rectify his mistake when Fíli guffawed. "Not like that you idiot! I meant _Míyah_. She's - been having nightmares," he invented.

 

The mischievous glint in Fíli's eyes went out, replaced with a look of concern.

 

"She - she misses her mother I think," Kíli added for good measure.

 

This was not entirely true. Kíli had been woken in the past by Míyah’s nightmares, though she had long outgrown them now. However, Kíli’s recognition of his ever-growing illicit love for Meron wasn’t the only problem lingering on his mind. Ever since Míyah started attending lessons with the other dwarflings, she had returned home distinctly and unusually quiet. When he asked her what was wrong, more often than not she would beam him a radiant smile and tell him nothing. But Kíli recognized that tactic as one he used to use many years ago (and still did in truth).

 

"Haven't you thought of having her tutored privately?" Fíli suggested when Kíli expressed these fears to him.

 

Kíli considered this.

 

"I want her to know other dwarrows her own age," he replied quietly. "Remember us? How lonely we were?"

 

Fíli was silent for a moment, then nodded. "Still Kee… There's no denying she's a Durin, of royal blood. Eventually she'll have to have some kind of separation. There is no reason she couldn’t join Frerin’s lessons with Ori.”

 

Balin, now so old he could hardly remember his own age, was still nonetheless lucid and active. He was teaching Frerin, just as he had taught Fíli and Kíli when they were lads, and was training Ori to become a tutor in his stead. Ori was beside himself at the chance.

 

“Are you sure Ori will be able to handle both of them and their boisterous ways?” Kíli asked with a half-laugh. Fíli grinned back. Ori’s gentle ways and ever-growing knowledge from Balin’s careful instruction did incite a deep adoration from dwarflings, though he floundered hopelessly when it came to disciplining them.

 

“I’ll consider it,” Kíli allowed, yawning again and claiming tiredness as an excuse to go to bed. He’d been lucky to defer the conversation onto safer topics that time, but Fíli’s offhand comment had unnerved him.

 


	13. Thunderstorms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More cracks, more risks, and Miyah turns out to be a danger to Kili and Meron's secrecy..

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope everyone likes this chapter, it was one of the first scenes i imagined in this part of the series! x

 

Kíli had been afraid of thunderstorms as a dwarfling, and it didn’t surprise him that Míyah was too. Deep inside the mountain, they could usually barely hear the sounds of rain, but on some nights when the winter storms came, the rumbles of thunder and the cracks of lightning striking the mountain reverberated through the stone walls, their volume magnified tenfold. On nights like that, hardly any of the dwarrows of the Lonely Mountain could sleep.

 

Except Kíli, of course. These days he could sleep through an earthquake, and almost had, according to those who had made up the Company when they retook Erebor. He and Meron had settled in eachother’s arms, though Kili’s body had slackened as he drifted off; now he lay on his back, motionless except for his steadily moving chest, one hand reached out, inches from Meron.

 

Meron was still awake, the vibrations in the rock with every peal of thunder and crack of lightning keeping her from the brink of sleep. Nonetheless, she was drowsy enough to not rouse herself and get back to her own chambers as she usually did; she knew she was safe with her excuse of a night patrol, so no one would miss her.

 

She was roused by a new noise, the sound of a door creeping open, and soft footsteps that could only belong to a dwarfling. A whisper came from the darkness: “Da?”.

 

“What is it?” asked Meron equally quietly. Míyah padded over to her side of the bed and Meron heard her ragged breathing.

 

“Are you scared of the thunderstorm?” Meron asked. Míyah paused for a second, as though contemplating lying, before deciding to be truthful and nodding.

 

Wordlessly, Meron lifted her arm, offering her space on the bed. Míyah climbed into it without a second thought, purring as she snuggled into the warmth.

 

“Do you know why we have thunderstorms?” Meron murmured, trying to distract the dwarfling as she cringed against another clap of thunder that echoed around the high-ceilinged room.

 

“Is it Aule?” Míyah asked.

 

“Yes. He is working in his forge to make his wife pretty gifts and his warriors strong swords.”

 

Míyah raised her arms to wind around Meron’s neck. One of them caught on the necklace she wore, a pendant hanging from a simple chain. The pendant was a small pebble, perfectly circular and small enough to be unobtrusive in day to day life, but with a pleasing weight and solidity when clasped in the palm of a hand. Meron often gripped it when she prayed or was nervous. Inlaid in the pebble was a small etching of silver and a tiny gem.

 

“Why do you wear this?” she whispered.

 

“It’s my talisman. It brings me luck,” Meron told her.

 

Míyah turned it over in her hand, watching the stone gleam in the almost-darkness. “Why does it do that?” she asked in wonder.

 

“My father told me that it was a piece of the Arkenstone,” Meron told her.

Whether this was true or not Meron didn’t know, but she did know it was no ordinary stone. The tiny gem, barely a fragment of a gem really, was luminescent, almost glowing, gleaming in spite of the dim light filtering in from the rain-drenched moon above. It often seemed to be filled with some kind of liquid light, though Meron took this to be a trick of her eyes, as a stone was _solid_ , it couldn’t possibly ebb and flow like water, like molten mithril when it hit the light. “But we mustn’t tell Uncle Thorin that now, should we?” she whispered conspiratorially. Míyah nodded in the fervent way of children and Meron pressed her lips together to keep from smiling.

 

“So… the storms and noises come from when Aule is working in his forge?”

 

“That’s right,” replied Meron.

 

Míyah sniffed. “Why does he have to do it _at night_?”

 

Meron laughed and at that, someone stirred beside her. She restrained herself from rolling her eyes. So storms that could raise the dead wouldn’t wake him but a soft laugh on the other side of the bed…

 

Kíli rolled over and wrapped an arm around Meron’s waist. “Who are you talking to?” he muttered.

 

“We have a guest,” Meron replied, rolling over and bringing the dwarfling between them.

 

“ _Mizim_ ,” Kíli murmured, opening his arms so his daughter could roll into them. He stroked her back soothingly and buried his fingers in her chocolate curls, cradling her head in his hand. “I forgot you didn’t like storms. It’s been a while since we had one this bad.”

 

“I’m fine now. Your bed is so warm,” she hinted.

 

Kíli chuckled. “You can stay here tonight, but don’t think you’re coming back tomorrow if there isn’t another storm!”

 

Míyah sighed dejectedly, then stifled a yawn.

 

“I hope Aule’s wife and his warriors are happy tomorrow,” she murmured as her eyes drifted shut.

 

Meron sensed rather than saw the questioning look Kíli threw at her and she smiled in the darkness, shaking her head slightly. _Tell you tomorrow._

 

Míyah rolled over in her father’s arms, pillowing her head against his chest now. She reached out and grabbed Meron’s hand. In a matter of minutes, she was asleep.

 

Meron was taken aback but her heart filled with warmth. Kíli didn’t miss the exchange. His face broke out into an irresistible smile, even as his heart swelled with sadness. He reached out and laid a hand on Meron’s hip, which she covered with her own.

 

“Don’t you think it’s a bit strange for her,” a whisper came out of the darkness. “That… she finds you here. When you won’t be here forever.”

 

The words floated like noxious gas in the air between them. Meron kept her eyes shut.

 

“It will confuse her when you’ve gone.”

 

“Maybe I’m not going anywhere,” Meron replied fiercely.

 

There was a pause as the meaning of what she had said sank in.

 

“Maybe you’ll change your mind when you’re a married woman,” Kíli said quietly. His words sounded tired. “You know that having affairs out of wedlock is forbidden. There are no exceptions, soulmates be damned.”

 

“Soulmates?” Meron scoffed under her breath. “Nothing but myths.”

 

Kíli didn’t speak for a long time.

 

“It’s not as if I _want_ to get married.”

 

“Then don’t.”

 

“I _can’t_.”

 

Kíli sighed. “Talk about mixed signals, Meron.”

 

A spark of anger lit up inside Meron. “It’s easy for you,” she hissed. “Easy for _you_ , son of Durin; you with your _royal blood_ , no one can force _you_ into anything! It’s not like your family depends on a good marriage to save us.”

 

“Why can’t you marry me then?” Kíli was still not angry. “Am I not good enough?”

 

Meron fought back the prickling in her eyes. “It’s too late now,” she whispered finally.

 

……

 

Kíli, on reflection, should have known letting Meron spend the night was a bad idea. Their second slip up occurred the next day.

 

Borek, as he usually did, picked up Meron around lunch. They were sitting in a corner of the market-place talking. At least, Borek was talking – Meron was people-watching, absently dropping a “Yes,” or a “Mmm,” at appropriate-sounding parts of his monologue.

 

Kíli was here. She tried not to make it look as if she was staring at him. Last time they had seen eachother in the market place, Míyah had waved happily and called, “Hi Meron!” Her and Kíli’s eyes had met for the briefest second, then both of them turned away quickly. She wasn’t sure if Borek had noticed, but he did ask why the child had waved. She simply said they had met because she worked with Kíli, and that dwarflings would be dwarflings.

 

This time Kíli hadn’t seen her, too busy keeping his eyes on his raucous daughter who never seemed to tire. She was a boundless ball of burning energy. Meron’s eyes followed her movements fondly as she smiled sweetly at a fruit vendor, secretly pocketing a swollen apricot. She then spent five minutes poring over toys, during which she didn’t notice her father fishing the pilfered fruit from her pocket and returning it to the vendor with an apologetic smile.

 

“That ‘ _son of Durin’_ has no control over his child.” Borek’s voice reached her at last, and Meron gritted her teeth to stop herself barking a retort. “Some prince. I expect when you have children to keep them under better management.”

 

“I will do my best,” Meron replied icily. Her tone was lost on Borek. His rant started up again and Meron sighed as she scanned the area and realised Kíli and Míyah were out of sight. She resigned herself to another ten minutes of this drudgery before she could reasonably excuse herself and go back to work.

 

She perked up a little as Míyah came back into sight, clutching a paper bag. Judging by the amount of sugar around her mouth, Kíli had taken her to the sweet vendor. Her eyes, roaming happily for her next destination, spotted Meron. She waved.

 

Meron, unthinkingly, waved back, and Borek immediately demanded, “Who are you waving at?”

 

“Just the child,” Meron replied innocently, then realised to her horror that Míyah was skipping happily in her direction. Meron wondered where she could run but Míyah was already upon them, clambering into Meron’s lap, and chattering happily at the speed of light. “Do you want a sweet? Da just took me and he said to wait outside because he was buying a surprise for someone, and I wasn’t allowed to know because if I did I wouldn’t keep it a secret, but he’s wrong, I can keep secrets!” Míyah pouted, then happily stuffed another confection (it looked like a marzipan square, drizzled with chocolate and topped with powdered sugar) into her mouth.

 

Meron’s eyes darted around. Any minute now Kíli would undoubtedly spot his daughter, sitting as she was on Meron’s lap, and the last thing she wanted was for Borek and Kíli to come face to face again. “Míyah, _ghivashel,_ don’t you think you should go find your Da now in case he’s looking for you?” The endearment slipped from her tongue before she could stop it and she cursed herself as Borek snorted.

 

As she feared, she saw Kíli, his swivelling eyes eventually falling on them, immediately winding his way around people to meet them. His smile slipped off his face as he took in the burly black-haired dwarf sitting next to them.

 

Míyah, ever-oblivious, was still chattering. “Last night there was another storm, and I told _adad_ what you told me, that it was just Aule in his forge making pretty things for Yavanna and making good swords for his children.”

 

Meron deliberately did not look at Kíli. He lifted his daughter physically from Meron’s lap, despite her protests, and said something hastily about going to deliver his surprise to Dis.

 

Meron’s heart was pounding at the close encounter, but she outwardly remained impassive, pretending as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened. Borek was glaring at her.

 

“ _Ghivashel_?” he mocked. “I thought you hardly knew the child.”

 

“I have looked after her a few times when her father was busy,” Meron invented.

 

“Nonsense. They have nannies and wet nurses for that kind of stuff.” Meron tried to look nonchalant as Borek’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. She met his gaze calmly. After a few seconds he huffed, and returned to lecturing her about his new job, Meron breathing an internal sigh of relief.

 

That had been close.

 

 


	14. The River

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this isn't the final chapter of this story. and i just want to apologise for being so awful at updating this story, I've been devoting all my time to another AU fic i'm writing!  
> as usual, all comments, kudos' are greatly appreciated :) X

It was their secret. Their closely guarded secret. Until.

 

“I have to marry Borek,” Meron told him finally. “They said today they were going to finalise the date of the wedding.”

 

They were at the archery range and Kíli lowered his bow for a second, contemplating.

 

“Fine,” he responded, trying not to reveal how his heart had sunk into the ground at her words. His next arrow missed the bullseye by about a foot.

 

He needn’t have worried though. Barely half an hour later, the two of them were hastily adjusting their clothing in the nearby woods, and Meron was whispering that she would tell Borek she was on duty tonight.

 

……

 

The sun blinded her when she first opened her eyes the next morning. With a sinking realisation, she realised where she was. How _foolish_.

 

She was filled with a sudden fury, fury at herself for letting herself tread this path too far, fury for not controlling her foolish desires, fury for letting this happen once again. She had to control herself; this had to end soon, why prolong it if it would only lead to heartbreak? Who had she been pretending to be anyway, she was far too practical, far too sceptical for _love_. And most of all, it was far too late.

 

“Why does this keep happening?” Meron hissed, throwing herself out of the bed and pulling on her tunic, fingers fumbling with the laces. “Why am I so _stupid?_ ”

 

“Your tunic’s inside out,” Kíli commented dryly. His nonchalance did nothing to improve her mood.

 

“Shut up!” Meron snarled, realizing he was right. She pulled it off and Kíli’s arms were suddenly around her from behind.

 

“Don’t go,” he said quietly.

 

“Kíli, I have to, this is – “

 

“There’s a reason it keeps happening,” Kíli interrupted. “Can’t you tell?”

 

“Tell _what_?”

 

Kíli said nothing, but turned her around inside his arms. Meron suddenly felt her eyes filling with tears.

 

“Kíli, I can’t, don’t…”

 

“Let’s just hold eachother?” Kíli whispered, hugging her tightly. Meron’s protests stuck in her throat as she pressed against him, still clutching her tunic, forcing a barrier between their skin.

 

“I don’t want you to go,” Kíli murmured.

 

“I – don’t want to go either,” Meron choked. “But… it isn’t right.”

 

“I think it is right. I think it’s – _too_ right. Too real. I don’t know why.”

 

Meron’s brain froze at his words as she recognised the sentiments behind them exactly. She thought again about leaving and felt as though her heart would break. This was ridiculous, this was stupid, they’d barely known eachother a few months yet already she felt like she’d known him all her life. “Kee,” she uttered, barely audible.

 

“I think -” Kíli’s voice sounded slightly strangled. “I think… you’re my One.”

 

“What?” Meron’s voice quivered around the rising lump in her throat. “How can you say that?”

 

“I didn’t used to believe in it. But all this… it’s inevitable, can’t you see?” he pleaded, ducking his head and trying to make eye contact. Meron looked quickly at the ground, hoping her hair would hide her face, wanting to hide the wetness in her eyes.

 

“Why does it hurt so much?” Meron whispered.

 

“Because you’re not meant to go.” Kíli pushed her hair back before she could slap his hands away.

 

“It’s not meant to go like this,” said Kíli softly. “We’ve both loved before. We’ve both… But now we’ve found eachother, we’re going to be alright.”

 

Meron attempted a smile. The resulting look on her face looked horribly weak she was sure as she leaned up to brush her lips against Kíli’s ear.

 

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. She pulled away, yanked her tunic over her head and fled before she could meet Kíli’s eyes. She sensed him, motionless, not having moved a muscle when she closed the door.

 

When Meron reached her chamber in Vargal and Merope’s house, she crumpled onto the bed and wept. She hadn’t cried for a long time and it seemed as if she was making up for the years of her dry eyes at that moment. She couldn’t even explain why she was crying, why it hurt so much. All she could feel was that something was wrong, and her tears were tears of frustration above all else, tears of hurt and annoyance at her lack of ability to stop them or control her raging emotions.

 

As much as she felt like curling up and spending the whole day locked in her room not talking to anyone, Meron laboriously roused herself after an hour, when the sun had started to make its way high into the sky. She knew there was only one place she would find peace: the river, cutting across the pebble beach, interspersed with big round boulders. It was a place she had cherished, found solitude always since discovering it a few weeks after arriving in Erebor, out of the mountain through one of the secret side entrances, down a rocky sheer slope and there it was, enclosed by trees and birdsong and peace. She realised she hadn’t been for months. Today she would dip in the water and then stretch out on one of the boulders and allow the sun to dry every drop of moisture on her skin. When she got home, it would be with a brave face, ready to hear the date of the wedding, and prepared to accept her new life head-on.

 

She climbed out of her window and shimmied down the tree, not wanting to walk downstairs and risk meeting a member of her family, or worse, Borek. When she reached her safe haven, she groaned.

 

She was not alone.

 

She should have known he would be here.

 

It was as if some fickle god was pushing them together relentlessly, mercilessly, ignoring all of life’s other plans to push them apart.

 

Meron thought about turning around to run. But Kíli had undoubtedly heard her, and judging by the fact that he didn’t turn around, he knew it was her. She laid her blanket down on the riverbank in her usual spot, about fifty metres from him, laid down and closed her eyes.

 

They stoically ignored eachother.

 

“After all we’ve been through… why now?”

 

Meron’s heart broke anew at the sound of his voice. She forced herself to turn and look him in the face as she answered.

 

“I have to.” She fought her voice to be steady. She had cried so many tears already, but she felt like she was made of glass, she could so easily shatter again.

 

“You don’t have to do anything. Why should you do something if you don’t want to?”

 

Something inside Meron snapped. She leapt to her feet and advanced on him. He jumped to his feet also, brown eyes meeting brown eyes defiantly.

 

“It’s not that _simple_!” she shouted. “You know what I want, but I _can’t_. Don’t doubt me, this is for the best!”

 

“If you knew it would never happen, if you had no intention of ever marrying me, why did you let it go on?” Kíli roared.

 

“Marrying you? Why would I marry you? Why should I marry _anyone_?” Meron almost wailed.

 

“You should marry me because you love me!” Kíli snarled.

 

“Deflate your head, _my Prince_ ,” she sneered. “For some of us, marriage can’t just be based on _love._ For some of us, it’s just not that easy!”

 

“Not that easy – this is the easiest thing in the world! You know it and I know it – don’t deny it!” Meron had turned her face away. Kíli moved over to her and put his hands lightly on her face, never forcing her to turn, simply willing her to look at him. “We both know what this is – I was as cynical as you are before I met you.” Meron pulled away from him but Kíli grabbed her hands to stop her going too far. She didn’t pull away, but met his gaze blankly.

 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

 

“Don’t lie to me, please.”

 

“Kíli, don’t push me. It _won’t happen_.”

 

Kíli’s eyes turned iced over; the molten endless depths of them had solidified, now it was like looking into stone. Cold, hard stone. He let go of her hands.

 

“Fine. Marry Borek. Do what you think is best.”

 

“I always do,” Meron snapped at his retreating back. When he was gone, she fell to her knees on the ground, black lights blinking in front of her eyes. It felt as though something was ripping her open from the inside. ‘Heartache’ had always seemed such a daft term until now, until her resolve crumbled and she had half a mind to call out his name, ask him to come back, tell him she’d changed her mind, tell him he was right and she had known he had been all along but she was torn between what she wanted and what she thought she ought to do, but by the time she looked up she was alone again. The trees were swaying, and their brutal words had stopped echoing through the air.  


	15. Beginnings and Endings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (apologies for the horrible chapter title - this is the end of part 2, the story will continue in part 3!)

Meron reached home in a daze some hours later and could do little else but lower herself onto the bed and stare into space. She was still sitting there, motionless, when Borek returned. He grunted in greeting. Meron’s heart would have been thrumming with fear if it didn’t feel so numb.

 

“How was your day?” Borek asked.

 

“Fine,” Meron answered automatically.

 

Meron watched as Borek’s eyes swivelled to the mirror and he began toying with the decorations in his beard. He smoothed out the sides, adjusting his stance to see himself from different angles, examining the minute differences as he preened.

 

“The date of the wedding has been decided,” he informed her. “It’s to be in one week’s time.”

 

Meron said nothing. Her silence must have shocked him; it was enough to pull him from his vanity and stare at her.

 

“Nothing to say?” he scoffed. Meron closed her eyes and gritted her teeth, but what she was not prepared for were his next words. “Not even given the fact that you don’t want to marry me?”

 

Meron started internally and her heart was shocked back into beating. On the outside, she remained emotionless. She raised her eyes expressionlessly to met his own.

 

“I can’t deny it,” Meron told him simply.

 

Borek guffawed mirthlessly. “You never could. You always speak your mind. And even when you don’t, you wear your heart on your sleeve so all others can see it anyway.”

 

She didn’t reply. In her mind she always known the marriage had been doomed before it was even consummated, before the very ceremony itself, doomed from the first moment she and Kíli had met. It wasn’t one of those fairytale _soulmate_ stories, it hadn’t been love at first sight by any means, but looking back now, she couldn’t ignore the way fate had been pushing them together even as they had been resisting, trying to pull apart like opposite ends of two magnets. It was futile to fight fate.

 

 _A dwarf gives their heart only once,_ she thought _. If you are sensible, you wait for the right person, the who is right for you. If you are rash, you give it away too soon, and spend your life in heart-break. Isn’t that what the stories say?_

_… Isn’t it?_

 

Borek crossed the room and stood in front of her arms folded. Meron avoided his eyes.

 

“So. It’s that Durin boy, is it?”

 

Meron’s temper flared. “He’s the second-born, so an heir to Erebor!” she snarled. “You would do with having some respect!”

 

“ _Respect?”_ Borek sneered. “Respect for the dwarf who cuckholded me? Unlikely!”

 

Meron didn’t trust herself to say anything that wouldn’t get her into trouble so she kept her mouth shut, though with great difficulty. Her tongue was longing to whip Borek, to cut him down with harsh truths about how Kíli was five times the dwarf he’d ever be, would be even without his title, but she kept her poisonous words imprisoned behind her clenched teeth.

 

“What is it then, true love? Or just an affair to deal with your marriage jitters?”

 

“I can’t marry you,” Meron told him slowly.

 

“Why is that?”

 

“He’s – “ Meron hated it, hated to say the word. “He’s my One.”

 

Borek laughed aloud now. “Psh! Myths and children’s stories! You cannot be telling me you believe in such old-wives tales.”

“Says he who has clearly not found his own One,” she retorted and instantly wondered if she’d regret it. Borek’s eyes glinted dangerously.

 

“I will not be cuckholded and humiliated,” he told her in a low voice, thrumming with something that would make others quail.

 

“How could you be cuckholded if you weren’t even married?” Meron shot back. Borek surged forwards but Meron was too quick – she rolled across the bed and leapt to her feet, facing him with the bed in between them.

 

No, she thought, she had been wrong. This marriage was doomed well before Kíli arrived on the scene. This vain, arrogant, self-satisfied _bastard_ could never have satisfied her, nor her him. They were as ill-suited as the lion and the lamb. His family credentials and ambitions aside, Borek made her sick. His conceit, his snobbery, his temper, the way he treated her – _no_ , she decided. Regardless of Kíli, regardless of her family, in her heart of hearts she knew she could never have gone through with it, could never have condemned herself to a life of hatred and spite.

 

“Can’t you see?” she ripped out. “Can’t you see now? This would never have been a happy marriage! Look at us! We don’t love eachother! And I could _never_ love you, Kíli or not!”

 

Their eyes bored into eachother, Meron trying desperately to make him _see_.  

 

Borek’s fist unclenched, and he lowered his arm. To Meron’s surprise, he sat down heavily on the bed, the slope of his shoulders reading… _defeat_.

 

“I suppose I haven’t been good to you, have I?” he asked, sounding deflated. Resigned.

 

 _Understatement_. Meron kept that thought to herself as she remained tense, on her feet.

 

Borek looked up at her wearily and gestured to the bed. “Oh, sit down. Can’t you tell when a dwarf is defeated?”

 

Meron repeated his last statement around in her head a few times before she slowly sat. Borek sighed.

 

“I think I always knew you never loved me.”

 

Meron stayed silent.

 

“I did care for you, you know. Very much.”

 

 _Liar!_ Meron didn’t believe his words for a second. But still, she said nothing.

 

“I will accept to calling off the wedding,” he relented at last. “But I must keep face.”

 

Meron’s sudden jubilation at his first statement died as he finished, and she resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “What do you want?”

 

“I must not have the whole of Erebor thinking I have been cuckholded. I have been here months enough that people know who I am and why I was here.”

 

Typical. So typical, his own self-image taking precedence before all else. Meron began to reconsider her thoughts a few moments ago that he wasn’t such a bad guy after all.

 

“We must make some agreement. We shall have to say that my father did not find the dowry your parents offered was suitable so he decided to withdraw my offer in marriage.”

 

“ _Dowry_?” Meron groaned. “Dwarves haven’t used dowries in _years_ , Borek, and what’s more, it was more likely that a bride-price would be paid than a dowry!”

 

Borek glared at her. Meron decided to pick her battles. She sighed. “Alright. That can be our story.”

 

“And you are not to marry this _Kíli_ as soon as I am off the scene. To maintain the illusion.” Borek snorted. “Kíli. What kind of name is that anyway? And a brother called Fíli? How vulgar, to have rhyming names like clowns. Here I was, thinking they were royalty. Psh!”

 

Meron smacked him, hard. “Don’t be petty.”

 

Borek rubbed his arm. “ _Ow_. He must be your One if you are prepared to defend him like this after such a tiny insult.”

 

“I – I suppose he must be.” Meron’s heart swelled as she gazed at Borek, knowing this might be the last time she set eyes on him, knowing he had accepted the breakdown of their marriage, knowing above all she was free, _free_. “So – am I to take it that all is settled between us?” she asked cautiously, hardly daring to believe it.

 

Borek grunted. “I suppose so.”

 

“I promise I will stick to your story. Although I can assure you my parents will be outraged when they hear of it.”

 


End file.
